Beginnings and Endings

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Beginnings and Endings

Greetings to everyone and welcome to a new year! In so many ways, 2021 marks a number of important endings as well as significant beginnings. We wrapped up our Real World, Real Science project (which we'll share more about in our next newsletter) and we also completed our work with California’s Coast Community College District (CCCD) – a consortium of community colleges located in Southern California. CCCD hired us to help them explore the needs of their regional business community, specifically among employers that hire middle-skills data workers.

To do this, we created a survey based on our Profile of the Data Practitioner, to see what specific duties (major work responsibilities) and tasks (smaller work responsibilities) are required of their entry-level data workers. We distributed the survey through the help of the Economic & Workforce Development Department for the City of Los Angeles, who were willing to act as a liaison with regional employers.

Webinar Series: Expanding Access to Data Science Careers

Enhanced Strategies to Increase Diversity | Feb 10 | 10–11:30 AM ET
New Pathways for a Data Science Workforce | Mar 10 | 10–11:30 AM ET

Survey respondents were employed by companies involved in a variety of areas, including education and training, hospitality and tourism, government and public administration, human services, and transportation, distribution, and logistics. Survey results showed that the number of data workers varied among the respondents’ companies, from a few (1-25) to more than 100; and that these numbers included “entry level” workers in all but one instance. These findings indicate that a variety of industry sectors have entry-level data jobs whose skills can be reasonably integrated into a community college data science program.

Using the survey results, we were able to produce a “hot spot” map, which identified the key duties and tasks assigned to entry level staff. The most commonly identified entry level data worker tasks were concentrated under the duties “Transforming Data” and “Analyzing Data." Using these findings, the CCCD member colleges can now analyze their curricula to see how the skills they are teaching in their data science and analytics courses align with the needs of employers in their region who are hiring entry-level workers.

The CCCD work is part of a broader ODI effort to help facilitate collaboration among community colleges and universities seeking to create new data science programs across the U.S. If you are an employer and willing to participate in our US-wide survey regarding the data worker skills you expect your entry level employees to perform, please complete this 5-minute survey to help inform their work.

We wish you all great success in the new year!

Randy Kochevar
ODI Director

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edc.org

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