Data Science Education Centre of Excellence launched

The Centre supports the delivery of data science education, data skills development training, and data understanding across the University

The new Data Science Education Centre of Excellence (DSE CoE), based at the Bayes Centre, will work in collaboration with academic, professional services, and learning technology colleagues across the Institution.

Aim

The aim of the Centre is to act as a central co-ordinating unit for data science education across the University, to ensure initiatives are aligned and a strategic portfolio of interdisciplinary curriculum is both identified and developed. Supporting Schools who will deliver innovative data science education, the Centre will provide a central point of contact for industry, public sector, and third sector partners, facilitating discussions with academic units.

The Centre itself will not deliver educational offerings, but will leverage existing activities and programmes and help build new initiatives and resourcing models to ensure a consistent approach to data science education across the University. It will also ensure the needs of the student population at all levels are met.

Team

The core team consists of the Bayes Director of Education, Teresa Ironside, and the newly-appointed Bayes Education Managers Kate Farrow and Kirsten Phimister, with contributions from the wider Bayes Team. This team is supported by the Centre of Excellence Strategy Group with representatives from each of the four DDI Hubs in the University and the DDI Skills Gateway.

Kate comes to the Centre from the Deanery of Clinical Sciences and has worked in various roles across the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, and the College of Science and Engineering. Kirsten joins the Centre from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, having previously worked at Edinburgh College of Art.

Working with experts from across the University, immediate priorities for the team include the establishment of a Strategy Group to co-ordinate activity across the DDI Hubs and prioritise project pipelines. The Strategy Group will also map the landscape of existing courses, programmes, training and outreach activity to create and maintain a portfolio matrix of activity.