UNSW Business School has launched two new Graduate Certificate postgraduate degrees that develop key skills in the area of business analytics, and also regulation and compliance.
UNSW Business School has launched two new Graduate Certificate postgraduate degrees that develop key skills in the area of business analytics, and also regulation and compliance.
The Graduate Certificate in Business Analytics is designed to teach the techniques needed to generate and communicate actionable insights from data and thus enable businesses to make well-informed data-driven decisions.
A recent Delphi study, undertaken by UNSW’s Professor Richard Vidgen, highlighted two significant issues with regards the key challenges in creating value from big data and analytics.
Business managers revealed significant issues concerning data quality, data accuracy and the ability to link data to key decisions. And they also noted concerns about upskilling employees to utilise analytics and lamented the massive skills shortage across both analytics and the IT infrastructure supporting the analytics.
The Grad Cert in Business Analytics aims to close that skills gap, by helping students gain practical knowledge and skills in the likes of data mining, visual analytics, descriptive analytics, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics. They will also study the ethical and social implications of business analytics and consider the future direction of the industry.
Ethics is an important consideration as Sam Kirshner, Senior Lecturer in the School of Information Systems and Technology Management at UNSW Business School, explains.
“The greatest challenge with analytics and AI is going to be ensuring their ethical use,” he says. “For example, AI employed by e-commerce retailers to set prices can participate in collusion and driving up prices by mirroring and learning from competing AI’s behaviours without human interference, knowledge or explicit programming for collusion.”
Meanwhile, the Graduate Certificate in Regulation, Compliance and Governance has been designed for professionals to provide them with the skills needed to manage regulation, governance and compliance from the perspective of both regulator and regulated.
In regulated industries, regulatory compliance has become a distinct specialisation in governance, and risk management. This has created a demand for a qualification in regulation. In turn, regulators are seeking to be able to match the formal qualifications of the regulated.
The Grad Cert in Regulation, Compliance and Governance addresses that demand with a program that can be completed in just six months.
Rob Nicholls, Associate Professor in the School of Taxation & Business Law at UNSW Business School, says: “Those studying the program will learn to identify key risks within regulated businesses and understand the challenges of both regulating and complying with the changes associated with deregulation.
“The program was designed by academics who have worked for regulators, professional advisers and the regulated. It is based on real case studies and the emerging challenges facing regulators and the regulated. And it specifically addresses the deregulatory policy settings in a post-pandemic environment.
“Deregulation requires a holistic view in order to be able to understand which of those regulatory layers are critical for protection and which can be removed or replaced with a lower regulatory obligation,” he adds.
“To do this work at the speed required - in order to promote economic growth - requires a deep understanding of both the regulated businesses and the evidence-based theory of regulation. It also requires a mindset that can foresee the potential unintended consequences of candidate deregulatory actions.”
Applications for the Graduate Certificate in Business Analytics and the Graduate Certificate in Regulation, Compliance and Governance are now open. For more information, visit www.business.unsw.edu.au/degrees-courses/postgraduate