News

Dr. Mike Smit knows big data can be intimidating. “People think, ‘I’m never going to know how to do big data,’” says the assistant professor in the School of Information Management. “But it’s not about becoming a data scientist; it’s about learning how to use big data in a world in which data is so important.”

The pervasiveness and usefulness of big data motivated an upcoming collaboration between Smit and the Faculty of Management’s Executive Education program. Executive Education delivers certificate-level courses to professionals in business, government and other organizations. In May, Smit, along with Rowe School of Business faculty Dr. Michael Bliemel and Dr. Hossam Ali-Hassan, will teach a three-day intensive course on big data. Deborah Merry, Director of Executive Education, is keen to add their course to the roster. “We know that companies are struggling to manage the opportunities and challenges created by big data,” she says. “And Dr. Smit and his colleagues are a fine example of the knowledge and expertise we can offer the business community to tackle these challenges.”

Smit is used to teaching the subject to his students, but with courses like the upcoming intensive, he has also begun taking his knowledge to non-academic audiences. “I think it’s great to get outside the university environment to talk about the research that happens here,” he says. “Especially in a faculty like ours, there’s a great focus on how what we’re doing can help, not only internationally and nationally but regionally.” Last month he gave a lecture to Halifax’s Chamber of Commerce on big data, a precursor to his Executive Education course. While his listeners initially seemed “a little bit nervous” about hearing from a professor, says Smit, “by the end they were one of the most engaged audiences I’ve talked to.”

Smit is a strong advocate not just for sharing research with practitioners and helping drive local prosperity, but also for data literacy. “Because data is so pervasive, everyone in an organization needs to be able to work with it. It’s not something we can outsource,” he notes. So what exactly is big data? “There are a lot of definitions,” says Smit. “The one that guided us as we put this course together is that data will feel big to you if it goes beyond your current capabilities.” He explains that the idea of data literacy is to extend an organization’s current capabilities, bringing ever larger data within reach. “In general, data literacy is about the ability to collect, evaluate, analyze, share, visualize and make decisions based on data,” he says. “In the course we’ll be talking about the tools and practices that will help organizations find the value in data.” The course will also teach “the kind of knowledge that you need to make good strategic decisions about how to use and manage data effectively in an organization.”

While some of Executive Education’s programs are geared towards cohorts—groups of personnel from the same business or organization—this course is open to anyone who wants to enrol. Smit says people have already begun to sign up, likely spurred on by the presentation to the Chamber of Commerce. “The Chamber itself was very happy with what we’re bringing to the table,” he notes. “It’s very relevant to what they’re trying to do with local businesses.” It’s also relevant to the mission of Merry, Executive Education and the Faculty of Management as a whole. As Smit remarks, “There’s a great role for this faculty to play in regional prosperity.”