Liaisons: Response Document

Responses to December 10 email l sent from Sastry Pantula:

  1. College of Forestry
  1. On Dec 11, 2014, at 6:57 AM, Maness, Thomas <> wrote:

Sastry this looks like a great program to me, thanks for sending the
proposal over. With this email I am submitting this to Associate Dean
Randy Rosenberger, who will coordinate our review. Best regards, Thomas

  1. On Dec 11, 2014, at 7:29 AM, Rosenberger, Randall <> wrote:
    Hi Sastry and Thomas,
    We'll initiate an internal liaison to evaluate the proposed MS in Data Analytics. I am familiar with strong interests among CoF faculty for such a program given several of our faculty are engaged in big data contexts. We will have our responses to you by Dec 26, 2014, as suggested.
    Sincerely,
    Randy
    **********************************
    Randall S. Rosenberger, PhD
    Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies
    140 Peavy Hall
    College of Forestry
    Oregon State University
    Corvallis, OR 97331
    e-mail:
    Phone: 541-737-4425
    **********************************

c.

------Forwarded Message ------

Subject: / RE: Proposed MS in Data Analytics
Date: / Tue, 16 Dec 2014 13:59:24 -0800
From: / Howe, Glenn Thomas <>
To: / Pantula, Sastry <>

Hi Sastry,

How does this related to the attached report: “REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON BIOINFORMATICS AND COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY CURRICULA”?

Glenn Howe

Response to Glenn Howe Email :

Quoting "Virginia M. Lesser" <>:
> Sastry-
These are different programs. The one proposed by Brett Tyler and
> the task force (I comment only on the the graduate one) is heavy in
> Biology and much less in the quantitative sciences. This program in
> Bioinformatics and Computational Biology only requires 8 credit hours
> in Statistics.
> The MS in Data Analytics has no biology requirements. This degree
> requires statistics and computer science courses. It is a much more
> quantitative degree.In the proposed MS in Data Analytics program,
> 24 credit hours are required core statistics courses and another 9
> are elective statistics courses.The 12 credit hours taught by the
> Computer Science faculty for the MS in Data Analytics focus on topics
> related to addressing issues in handling large data files, ie. Big
> Data.Our statistical classes are based on the premise that the
> tools are used in handling large data files..
> Ginny

  1. College of Veterinary Medicine

Quoting "Tornquist, Susan" <>:

Thanks Sastry-
I have distributed this to academic faculty in the College of Veterinary Medicine for review and asked them to comment directly to Ginny. We have one faculty member (Jan Medlock) whose focus is in mathematical modeling in disease/health who might have a particular interest in supporting the proposal.
Sue

Dear Professor Lesser:

Sue Tornquist asked CVM faculty to send comments to you regarding the Category I proposal for a MS program in Data Analytics.

I read the proposal and I think it would be a great addition to OSU eCampus. I envision that this program will help to raise OSU's prominence in both online education and in the growing field of "applied data analysis on the large-scale" (for want of a more concise term). I could see potential secondary benefits in terms of recruitment and training of on-campus graduate students as well.

It is great to see that the program includes both Statistics and CS courses.The course topics look great and I envision there will be a lot of interest in them.

Cheers,

Steve

------

Stephen Ramsey

Assistant Professor, Oregon State University

* Department of Biomedical Sciences

* School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

208A Dryden Hall

  1. College of Business

Quoting "Kleinsorge, Ilene - COB" <>:
> Sastry
> We fully support your proposal and when/if our business analytics
> program goes fully on line, our courses will be available to your
> students.
> Ilene
> Ilene Kleinsorge
> Dean- College of Business
541-737-6024

  1. College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences

Quoting Mark Abbott <>:
> I think in general this looks fine, but I have one overarching comment
> which then might lead to some adjustments in the proposed curriculum.
> I think the phrase “big data” is way overused and tends to focus people
> simply on the volume issue. Frankly, this is really not what is meant by
> data-intensive science. 25 years ago, NASA thought its planned Earth
> Observing System (EOS) was “big data” as it would be delivering 1 TB
> per day of remote sensing data. Now with a terabyte of disk costing
> around $25, it is not big. More specifically, this perspective focuses really
> on “big data” as a capacity issue. Clearly, the planned program does not
> take this approach but I would recommend that it more clearly state
> that “big data” (or more appropriately, data-intensive science) focus
> on developing a new capability approach. That is, simply scaling up
> our disk farms and relying on traditional hardware and software tools
> is not the issue. Rather we will develop new analytics and rely on new
> hardware and software to pursue “big data.” Running a MatLab farm
> on big data sets is not “big data.” It is simply a scaling up of capacity.
> Approaches such as using cloud APIs or analytics that can sort through
> long-tail data sets would fit in the category of new capability.
> The planned curriculum starts down this path, but I think it should be
> more explicit. Moreover, my concern is that there may be too much
> focus on taking existing tools and just applying them to big data
> sets. I think we need to think beyond this approach. Frankly, if someone
> is just running lots of parallel MatLab jobs, I don’t consider that
> “big data.”
> Hope these thoughts are helpful!

January 6, 2015

RESPONSE to this email: we have modified the language in the proposal to respond to these comments.

5. College of Public Health and Human Sciences

Quoting "Bray, Tammy" <>:
> Dear Sastry,
> I have checked with CPHHS faculty in Biostatistics and Epidemiology
> on your new MS program in Data Analytics, and although a few of them
> wondered what was the difference between "data analytics" and
> "statistics," they collectively believe that this MS will be a
> useful online program for the workforce that our College should
> support. They see no duplication with our MPH track or with the MS
> program in statistics in the College of Science.Thank you for
> asking and doing the liaison with us. We much appreciated your
> effort. I hope you find this comment useful. Happy Holidays!
> Tammy
> ______
> Tammy Bray, PhD
> Dean and Professor
> College of Public Health and Human Sciences
> Executive Dean
> Division of Health Sciences
> Oregon State University
> 123 Women’s Building
541-737-3256 | FAX 541-737-4230 | health.oregonstate.edu

6. College of Education

On Dec 25, 2014, at 8:23 PM, Bell, Randy <> wrote:

Hi Sastry,
I've shared this proposal with our curriculum committee, and we're in agreement that it's a strong proposal, should be quite successful, and we don't see any issues or concerns. Thank you for giving us a chance to review it.
Here's wishing you a fun and relaxing break and happy new year!
Randy

Received January 8, 2015:

Quoting "Rodgers, Lawrence" <>:
> I forwarded this out and heard nothing back, so I¹m assuming that to be
> acceptance.
lr