Data Mining
Ranked as an "Ahead of the Curve" career in 2008 by U.S. New & World Report
New Jersey Institute of Technology Online
National and International Applicants Accepted
Data Mining - Graduate Certificate - Online
- 100% online program
- Earn your certificate in just a year
- Only 12 credit hours
This online graduate certificate provides an introduction to data mining with an emphasis on large-scale databases as a source of knowledge generation and competitive advantage. This certificate is designed for data analysts working with large organizations to design and use their data resources. This program teaches the fundamentals of relational database technology, concurrency, and recovery. Students will learn the methods of database design and conceptual modeling and the principles of information-retrieval system design. Students will also master techniques essential for building text databases, document-processing systems, office automation systems, and other advanced information management systems. This program can be completed entirely online. Online students will be taught by the same NJIT professors and instructors who teach the campus courses. Courses in the Data Mining Graduate Certificate program include:
- Data Management System Design
- Data Mining and Management in Bioinformatics
Choose two of the following electives
- JAVA Programming
- Advanced Database Systems
- Information Retrieval
- Knowledge Management
The Data Mining program consists of 12 credit hours and usually takes 1 year to complete. All credits from the data mining graduate certificate can be applied toward these NJIT programs:
FAQs about Data Mining
1. What is data mining?
Generally, data mining (sometimes called data or knowledge discovery) is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information - information that can be used to increase revenue, cuts costs, or both. Data mining software is one of a number of analytical tools for analyzing data. It allows users to analyze data from many different dimensions or angles, categorize it, and summarize the relationships identified. Technically, data mining is the process of finding correlations or patterns among dozens of fields in large relational databases.
Although data mining is a relatively new term, the technology is not. Companies have used powerful computers to sift through volumes of supermarket scanner data and analyze market research reports for years. However, continuous innovations in computer processing power, disk storage, and statistical software are dramatically increasing the accuracy of analysis while driving down the cost.
2. What is the purpose of data mining?
Data mining is primarily used today by companies with a strong consumer focus - retail, financial, communication, and marketing organizations. It enables these companies to determine relationships among "internal" factors such as price, product positioning, or staff skills, and "external" factors such as economic indicators, competition, and customer demographics. And, it enables them to determine the impact on sales, customer satisfaction, and corporate profits. Finally, it enables them to "drill down" into summary information to view detail transactional data.
With data mining, a retailer could use point-of-sale records of customer purchases to send targeted promotions based on an individual's purchase history. By mining demographic data from comment or warranty cards, the retailer could develop products and promotions to appeal to specific customer segments.
3. What kind of careers can I have in data mining?
Employment prospects will be particularly attractive if you successfully combine the statistical techniques that you learned in school with the "data detective" skills that can only come from extensive, in-the-trenches experience. However, the exact direction that your career takes will be influenced by your non-quantitative skills and interests. Typically, data miners follow one of two very different career paths. Some remain on the technical side of the business, and eventually either move up the ranks to manage an entire staff of analysts or transition into the related field of data warehousing and processing. Others evolve into generalists, and ultimately become senior level marketers or strategy consultants.
4. What is the salary potential in data mining?
The compensation prospects are excellent. Data miners can expect to earn on average $85K to $90K. Salaries depend on education, experience, location, employer etc.
5. What careers lie beyond data mining?
If you think that you would like to eventually branch out beyond data mining, but want to remain on the technical side of the business, you will be in an ideal position to transition into the exploding field of data warehousing and processing. As a successful analyst, you will have honed your logic and data detective skills. Also, you will have become an accomplished programmer.
Your greatest asset, however, will be your years of experience as a sophisticated, technically- grounded, direct-marketing oriented, end user of data warehouses and marts.
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