Data Analytics (Distance Learning) (Taught)

Data plays a major role in modern organisations, especially in research and developing business strategies, so employees with the skills to translate complicated data sets into solutions are in demand. Develop valuable data analysis skills to find solutions for businesses everywhere on this Master’s course.

Why this MSc Data Analytics?
With an MSc in Data Analytics, you can take your interest in data into a role that specifically calls for your talents.

On this course, you'll be taught critical thinking and analysis skills by academics conducting research into artificial intelligence, machine learning and other areas relevant to data analytics.

You’ll sharpen your technical and technological abilities and master data mining tools, analysing real data gathered from our cosmology, cybersecurity and health informatics research.

Our MSc Data Analytics is a conversion course, so you won’t need any prior knowledge or experience in the fields of data analytics, computer science or programming to apply. We welcome students from a diverse range of backgrounds.

What you’ll study
On this course, you'll:

Analyse real data to provide answers for practical problems
Get remote access to our computer clusters and supercomputers
Learn about applied data analytics and engineering, advanced data management, big data applications and business intelligence
Discover and manage the business value provided by data sets
Become familiar with popular software and tools such as Knime, Tableau, Hadoop and Spark

How you're assessed
All assessments for this course are based on coursework submitted online. Your performance is assessed through coursework such as:

Practical work, including task-based exercises
Written assignments
Presentations
Master’s Engineering or Study Project
You'll also receive formal and informal tutor feedback to help you improve future work.

Career prospects and opportunities
Many organisations require data and someone skilled to make sense of it.

After studying this course, you’ll have practical experience with research and software and the specialist knowledge to excel within various industries.

You could go on to a career in artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics.

Roles open to you could include:

Data scientist/analyst
Chief data officer
Information strategist
Database programmer
Business intelligence analyst
Forecasting business analyst
Health data scientist
Discover the key terms that data analytics professionals need to know with our glossary:

Applied Intelligent Data and Text Analytics (30 credits)
On this module, you’ll develop applied knowledge of data mining and text analytics methods in different situations. You’ll gain experience of text mining and data tools, and learn how to visualise and interpret your results to solve real-world problems.

Big Data Applications (30 credits)
This module explores what big data analytics is and unpacks its challenges. You'll connect remotely to a cluster of Portsmouth computers as you learn to navigate new computational architectures developed to deal with big data and the increasing demand for its processing. You’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of the main scale-out and big data system architectures and platforms, as well as big data methods and algorithms to help you prepare for and adapt to big data’s volatile nature.

Business Intelligence (30 credits)
Various software applications are used to analyse and discover new insights into an organisation’s raw data. On this module, you’ll learn how to effectively use software - particularly Tableau - to visualise business data and translate it for strategy support. You’ll also be introduced to various types of financial data, reports and decision-making processes, and will learn about data warehouse concepts and their use.

Data Analytics and Management (30 credits)
This module covers the fundamentals of data analytics, including the core concepts, statistical methods, techniques and surrounding ethics and professional codes that underpin the field. You’ll learn about emerging trends in data analytics and management, and gain practical experience by learning how to design and implement a database for businesses based on a given set of requirements.

Master’s Engineering or Study Project (60 credits)
All your studies on this MSc will culminate into a final project that demonstrates the knowledge you’ve gained over the last two years. You can do an Engineering Project where you’ll focus on implementing something, such as a web app or machine learning model. Or you can do a Study Project that involves using big data in a sector of your choice. You’ll then plan, manage, evaluate and reflect upon a proposed solution based on your application of data research, collection and analysis.

All assessments for this course are based on coursework submitted online. Your performance is assessed through coursework such as:

Practical work, including task-based exercises
Written assignments
Presentations
Master’s Engineering or Study Project
You'll also receive formal and informal tutor feedback to help you improve future work.