November 5, 2014
Colleagues,
As Academic Director for the newly proposed UW-L Data Science Master’s Degree, I am seeking the
approval of the Academic Planning Committee to plan and implement this degree. This program already
has the support of the Mathematics Department, Dean Riley, and Provost Macpherson. (A letter of
support is being prepared by Dean Riley and will be forwarded as soon as it is available.)
What is it?
• Online
• Interdisciplinary array of twelve 3-credit courses.
• Collaboration between UW-System Extension and six UW campuses: Eau Claire, Green Bay, La
Crosse, Oshkosh, Stevens Point, and Superior. (Similar to Health and Wellness Management
and Health Information Management Technology bachelor’s degrees offered through UW-L).
• Each campus will offer two courses. UW-L is planning to offer courses in Statistical Methods and
Prescriptive Analytics to take advantage of our expertise in Statistics and Mathematics.
How does it work?
• Students enroll in the degree program at one of the six partner schools. Students enrolled at
UW-L will earn a UW-L Master’s Degree in Data Science.
• Faculty members are paid by UW-Extension to develop and teach the courses.
• All twelve courses will be approved by GCC on our campus and by its counterparts at the other
partner schools.
• Initially the two courses at UW-L will be taught as overloads. In the first couple of years we
anticipate that a total of four sections (two of each course) will be offered. Later, as the program
grows, money from UW-Extension may be used to hire academic staff to either teach the courses
or provide backfill for other faculty members that are teaching the courses.
Pros
• Mathematics faculty members will gain new expertise in online education.
• Data science is a rapidly growing field and we hope to leverage the development of these online
courses to:
o Develop and offer some undergraduate courses in data science for our traditional oncampus students (the online materials developed in conjunction with UW-Extension may
be used locally)
o Perhaps provide impetus for the development of a Master’s Degree in Statistics at UW-L.
• Faculty teaching in the program will gain expertise in data science and exposure to commercial
uses of data science. This experience will enrich their teaching of our local courses.
• UW-L will be producing graduates with Master’s Degrees in Data Science that are much in
demand throughout the state of Wisconsin and elsewhere.
Cons
• The initial offerings of UW-L’s Data Science courses will be staffed as overloads. However, the
long-term plan is to hire academic staff to either teach, or provide backfill for, the courses. Dean
Riley supports using the funding to hire additional academic staff.
There are three additional documents that are attached.
1. An outline showing how the other two attached documents address the topics required by the
Academic Planning Committee for Pre-Authorization to plan this degree.
2. The Notice of Intent to plan the degree that is to be approved by all UW schools and UW-System.
This is a draft of the Notice of Intent, but very few changes are anticipated.
3. The Request for Authorization to Implement document that is to be approved by the campuses
and UW-System. Again, this is a draft of the document, but very few changes are anticipated.
Approval at UW-L is a two-stage process. First, the campus has to approve the Notice of Intent along
with the Pre-Authorization document required by APC. The second stage occurs after the campus and
UW-System have approved the Notice of Intent at which time our campus would approve the
Authorization to implement document (or just the changes to the document that have occurred since the
Preauthorization). We anticipate very few changes and are hopeful that you will consider giving consent
for both stages.
I am available to answer any questions for your committee.
Respectfully submitted,
Jeff Baggett
Academic Director for Data Science
Professor of Mathematics