SAS Academic Program Business School Newsletter - Fall 2006 Edition

Job titles are a harbinger of changing corporate practices. Late last year Computerworld published an article on the increasing trend towards the Chief Analytics Officer title. A job search on the Monster.com jobs engine site returns more than 1000 positions with the keyword "analytics". By no coincidence, a similar search using the keyword "SAS" also generates more than 1000 hits. Experience with SAS analytical software provides an excellent foundation for an analytics-driven world. In fact, Marcel van Rooyen, quoted in the Computerworld article, is a former recipient from SAS Australia of the SAS Fellowship Program for students. In this issue, we will highlight schools in the United States, France, the UK, Germany, Argentina, Chile, Japan, Brazil, and Italy who are leading the way by incorporating analytics into the classroom. We will also tell you about how SAS ensures that you receive the latest updates to our analytics and resources we offer for training educators in how to follow this path. As always, we welcome your comments and questions at aigeditor@sas.com.

North Carolina State University and SAS to Collaborate on Data Analytics Education

North Carolina State University Chancellor James Oblinger and Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS, the leader in business intelligence, announced an initiative to create a new graduate degree program in the rapidly expanding field of data analytics.

Oxford and HEC Business School Students Study Total Cost of Ownership

Many schools want to offer an academic education with high focus on today's business challenges. After automating their business processes companies want to add more intelligence to these processes and select Enterprise Business Intelligence Platforms to do this efficiently. Many vendors offer Enterprise BI platforms in different forms and shapes but no methodology exists to compare them and the relationship between the offered functionality and the implied costs. A Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) approach is highly recommended.

That's why SAS turned to the Oxford SAID Business School in the United Kingdom in 2005 to develop such a methodology and to validate it by doing interviews with existing customers. They concluded that the developed methodology proved correct but that asking additional customers more in depth questions would improve the reliability of the results. SAS then asked the HEC Business School in Paris to implement the recommendations from the first study earlier this year. More than 400 customers were contacted and 109 interviewed in detail. The results show that SAS offers by far the lowest TCO and the highest functionality.

Click to read the executive summary of the HEC study

Cologne University of Applied Sciences Leverages SAS BI Server

An article (in German) posted in last month's EU.MA.Portal reports on the Cologne University of Applied Sciences' efforts to offer students cutting-edge technology. With about 16.700 students in 66 study courses and 413 professors, the university is the largest one of its kind in Germany. Its hallmarks are application-oriented and subject-comprehensive teaching as well as dynamic course enhancements, integrated practical experiences, and a short duration. "Vocational-competency" is one of its main goals. In order to fulfill this self-commitment, they take very seriously the often-demanded networking between science and economy.

For this reason the Faculty of Business Sciences sets great value on familiarizing the students with questions of corporate management, the usage of reporting systems, and generating strategically relevant information - those questions gain more and more importance in professional practice. "Business Intelligence" is both the topic of its own course and applied as a cross-section topic in courses such as human resource management or information management.

The University decided to place the SAS® BI Server in the center of the Business Intelligence lectures because the SAS® 9 Platform is considered virtually standard for reporting and strategic controlling in both large-scale and upper middle-class enterprises. Professor Lindner from the University's Faculty of Economic Sciences explains "We use SAS because the SAS BI Server replaces local spread sheet solutions as well as other reporting and analysis applications in many companies. The reason is that companies have a deficit in compiling reports - for instance due to heterogeneous databases or unequal topicalities." Working with SAS while studying guarantees the students a real advantage when they start their careers, because many companies demand a well-founded Know-how in working with SAS. A second reason for the decision for SAS is the unique Academic Program: The SAS Academic Club has been encouraging the intensive exchange between academic institutions and the economy for many years. "SAS appears here extremely dedicated; the SAS Academic Club is a real precursor", says Professor Lindner.

SAS considers the partnership with the Cologne University of Applied Sciences as an outstanding example in Germany, proving the motto of the SAS Academic Program: Bridging the Gap Between Academia and Business!

Web Seminar on Data Mining for Educators

In August 2006 the SAS Academic Program produced the first in a series of Web seminars that focus on the teaching of analytics in the university classroom. Dr. Ravi Bapna of the Indian School of Business and Dr. Galit Shmueli of the University of Maryland - College Park shared their real-world teaching experience to discuss how students benefit from learning analytics and data mining techniques and the importance of using statistics and modeling in the 21st-century business world. The Web seminar titled "Analytics and data mining skills give grads a competitive edge" is available here for free but registration is required.

If your institution isn't teaching students about the importance of analytics and data mining in the business world, now is the time to examine how doing so can improve their chances of gaining a true competitive edge in today's cutthroat job market. Analytics is a secret weapon of many top-performing companies today. Organizations such as Amazon.com, Harrah's, Capital One and even the Boston Red Sox have dominated their fields by employing industrial-strength analytics across a wide variety of activities, mining vast amounts of customer data to help reduce fraud, anticipate resource demand, increase acquisition, curb customer attrition and more. The seminar discusses how students find employment in a variety of industries based on the data mining and analytics skills obtained in their classes.

Malaysian Professor Reports: SAS Data Mining Training for Educators

Report from Dr Rasimah Aripin, UiTM ( Universiti Teknologi Mara Malaysia)

The annual SAS Summer Program for Educators Teaching Data Mining is a special program for university professors around the world who are currently teaching or planning to teach data mining courses at their institutions. Attendance is by invitation only with candidates nominated by the SAS office in the respective country. Those attending this program are indeed fortunate to have the opportunity to be trained by experienced instructors using the latest technology and course materials. I had the opportunity to attend the most recent program held at California State University, Long Beach, California.

Getting Statistical Software Out to You Faster

Statistical software development never stops at SAS. While our users are enjoying the new features and capabilities of a new release, we are fast at work on what will become the next release of SAS/STAT software.

Sometimes, we complete new software some time before the next release of SAS is scheduled. A few years ago, we decided to find a way to get that new software to our users without waiting for that next release. We instituted a web download program for new statistical procedures and used it to introduce the experimental GLIMMIX procedure to our customers. Several thousand Windows users have put the new procedures through its paces, and since then we have made a production version available to both Windows and UNIX customers.

Analyzing Income Inequality Based on the Expenditure Micro-data set of Susenas

The Graduate School of Economics at Tokyo International University offers a Masters degree under which students receive lectures and tutorials for research, submit a thesis, and take a presubscribed examination to obtain their degree delivered in English. The policy of education and research at this Graduate School is to train creative professionals not only in Japan but also internationally who have the ingenuity to face diverse policy problems in order to challenge and to stretch their abilities in an analytical and comprehensive way from global perspectives. The focus is placed on developing basic research ability for economic theory, history and statistical analysis as well as the ability to explore domestic and international policy challenges.

One of the PhD candidates in this program, Kadarmanto, wrote a paper and presented it at SAS Forum Tokyo 2005. The paper received high praise for the quality of analysis and the presentation received an award of encouragement. The paper was titled "Patterns of income inequality in Indonesia 1990-2002: An Empirical Analysis Based on the Expenditure Micro-data set of Susenas."

The purpose of the research was to carry out an analysis of income inequality approached by consumption-expenditure per capita, trying to identify how much inequality exists. It determines the pattern of income inequality over the period 1990-2002 and examines the sources of income inequality through disaggregating the inequality indices.

Brazilian Fellowship Student Using SAS Text Miner to Analyze Customer Satisfaction

Marcelo Schiessl, a master student at the Universidade de Brasília (UNB) is participating in the SAS Fellowship Program for students. He is doing his research in Information Architecture in the Science Information and Documentation Department. Marcelo is using SAS® Text Miner to analyze textual data from a financial services institution. His work intends to generate customer satisfaction indicators that could direct the definition of product and service strategies as well as create a base of frequently asked questions (FAQ).

In a help desk setting, customers submit problems or queries online or via call center to the vendor of a product and receive solutions or answers. This interaction is contained in an unstructured textual format difficult to manage effectively. While it can be a rich information source, often it contains redundant and poorly organized documents. This work is about applying text mining techniques in order to cluster and organize documents in this textual database. In this context, the application of the text mining intends to show that using appropriate tools and methodologies it is possible to maximize the discovery and the use of new and useful information encoded in textual format. Text mining has enormous potential for research in the Portuguese language and this work contributes to its development in this subject. Marcelo is the first user of Text Miner in Brazil.

News: Sheffield Hallam Updates their Masters in Business Intelligence

The SAS summer 2006 newsletter highlighted the current high demand for SAS skills in the global job market. Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) in the United Kingdom has worked with recruitment agencies and companies in the credit risk area and found the same high demand. Over the past 10 years SHU been working with SAS and a variety of employers at the Masters level to offer professionals an opportunity to extend their qualifications.

Rob McQuade, the Director of Credit at HBOS (a large UK financial institution) recently said: "HBOS is delighted to be working with Sheffield Hallam University in developing a strategic partnership for improving the academic excellence of our Credit Risk professionals."

So for students who are:
- working in the business intelligence area
- applying business analysis
- looking for the next step in their career
the MSc in Business Intelligence delivered by Sheffield Hallam University will allow them to exploit these exciting opportunities.

This course provides the opportunity to develop real practical skills in applying SAS software across a comprehensive range of business analytics to deliver effective business intelligence solutions. A wide range of contemporary issues will also be explored, including knowledge management, strategy and professional skills. Nikki Windsor, a Credit Systems Manager at HBOS, says "The course that Sheffield Hallam University offers in SAS is the best in the UK."

News: Universidad Austral Teaches SAS in Masters in Data Mining

Universidad Austral, one of the most prestigious academic institutions in Argentina, chose SAS Argentina to achieve the highest performance in their masters program in Data Mining, Knowledge Discovery, and Knowledge Management offered by the School of Engineering. The partnership will allow the university to use some of the leading solutions in the market to educate their specialized students and users. The focus will be on data mining, promoting and teaching concepts, applications and their importance in today's market. Universidad Austral chose SAS due to its reputation in order to maximize the value delivered to their students and enhance the institution's development.

Universidad Austral needed to evolve their software platform to better use their resources and entered into partnership with SAS to install the foundation SAS analytical tools (Education Analytical Suite) and SAS® Enterprise Miner^TM for the IT lab.

News: SAS Supports Launch of First Italian Masters in Innovation Management

News: Universidad de Chile Introduces Enterprise Miner in BI Program

Universidad de Chile is offering the course "Business Management - with Business Intelligence" and students will use SAS® Enterprise Miner^TM as part of their education. Universidad de Chile is the most traditional educational institution in Chile. The extension area of the Systems Department (part of the Business and Economy Faculty) has implemented a new course called "Business Management - with Business Intelligence". The primary goal of this course is to strengthen business management through strategic application of Business Intelligence (BI) using a variety of tools, especially data mining.This is the only course offering these skills and for the first time students will be exposed to SAS Enterprise Miner during the class.

"Using the tools provided by SAS - in this course - we provided global and powerful software to the students that is not normally available for this kind of specialization. Also the professors trained in this software have the opportunity to differentiate themselves from other professors and consultants that are working in this area. Definitely it means being in the vanguard of the data mining with a powerful and simple tool that transforms data into information", said Claudio Müller, Director of the Extension area for the Systems Department at the Universidad de Chile.

The course began in August and has 120 hours of instruction from 2 perspectives: informatics and business. It is a mix of theory and practice, with several lab hours. This course is not looking only in mathematics but also in reinforcing practice, because the course focuses on professionals from the commercial world that would like to have a project addressing its own data intelligence. Professionals from Systems Informatics that already know the concepts but would like to know how to apply them into business would also benefit.

Announcement: SAS Student Ambassador Deadlines for 2007

The SAS Student Ambassador Program is a competitive program designed to recognize and support student researchers who use SAS technologies in innovative ways to benefit their respective industries and fields of study. To be considered, students must submit their research for an international SAS conference and apply to the SAS Student Ambassador Program. Student ambassadors from the United States, Latin America and Canada attend SAS Global Forum (formerly known as SAS Users Group International, or SUGI), while student ambassadors from Europe, the Middle East and Africa attend SAS Forum International. Winners receive the title of SAS Student Ambassador, conduct a presentation and have all travel, lodging and conference registration expenses for SAS Global Forum or SAS Forum International paid as part of the award. However, the true and long-lasting benefits are the experiences, opportunities and knowledge that students gain. SAS skills are in great demand, and international conferences are excellent ways for students to gain exposure for the skills they have developed through their research. While at the conferences, student ambassadors will have the opportunity to interact with an international audience of SAS users including researchers, business leaders, SAS experts and specialists from every industry and sector.

Announcement: Analytics Expert Davenport to speak at SAS UK Forum

Professor Tom Davenport of Babson College in the USA will be delivering the keynote address at this year's SAS UK Forum. His address is titled "Competing on Analytics". Professor Davenport is a thought leader on the implementation of business intelligence sytems, and he will challenge businesses to put analytics at the heart of their business intelligence strategy. This is a vitally important issue for business schools as they prepare students for the analytics-led business future.

Announcement: Best-selling SAS Press Book Titles for Higher Education

Are you a professor or a student teaching or studying SAS? SAS Press offers many books particularly suited for use in higher education. A sampling of the most popular selections is available from our online bookstore, organized by these categories:

basic statistics
advanced analytics/predictive modeling
research/clinical
data mining
business intelligence

College and university professors may request desk copies. Code and data for these books are available for download, too. We invite you to consider using our documentation as part of your curriculum!

Announcement: Did You Know that SAS Offers a Point-and-Click Interface?

As a SAS user in academia, you may know SAS is the industry leader in analytics. What you may not know is that the software package licensed by your academic institution most likely includes SAS® Enterprise Guide^TM, a user-friendly, point-and-click interface that provides quick access to the analytic power of SAS. SAS Enterprise Guide is a powerful Windows application with an easy-to-use interface that enables self-sufficient, fast access to much of the analytic power of SAS software. It's helpful for SAS users at any skill level, and it can be used to create charts, graphs and reports for class exercises, research projects and so much more. We've created a useful Web page to give professors and students plenty of information about the key benefits of SAS Enterprise Guide for academia, including a free, on-demand Webcast about the product, a free tutorial, information about software training, and instructions on how to obtain SAS Enterprise Guide if it is not already part of your institution's software package. Additional SAS resources also are available to help professors incorporate SAS Enterprise Guide into their curricula and to support teaching and learning with SAS.

Announcement: SAS Learning Edition 4.1: Coming Soon!

SAS® Learning Edition 4.1 will be available in November 2006. This innovative and comprehensive personal learning version of SAS will be provided on two CD-ROMs, giving you the freedom to learn at your own pace from a PC. This latest and expanded version will include Base SAS®/V9.1.3, SAS/STAT®, SAS/GRAPH®, SAS/QC®, SAS/ETS® and SAS® Enterprise Guide® 4.1 and will be bundled with The Little SAS Book for Enterprise Guide 4.1. Whether you are a professor, student, or business professional, this is a great way to teach yourself SAS! (Note: Professors will be able to request a free evaluation copy.)

Announcement: Refine Your Analytics Expertise with SAS Training

As the undisputed leader in analytics knowledge and technology, SAS offers the most comprehensive analytics training available anywhere. From suggested course roadmaps and conferences to our new Analytics Lecture Series, you can learn the skills to reduce uncertainty, predict with precision, optimize performance, and create value for your organization.

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