Social Strategy1 is excited to share an announcement related to one of our clients, the Center for Innovation Education at Rutgers University. Rutgers University has partnered with Experiential Teaching Online (XTOL Corp.) to offer a remote, collaboration-driven course focused on big data and data analytics to recent graduates and professionals in New Jersey and throughout the US.

In Oct 2014, XTOL launched their skills-based technology career programs at the University of Texas at Austin’s Professional Development Center. Social Strategy1 partnered with the two organizations to drive enrollments in their first two cohorts of students for the Certificate in Agile Web Application Development in Ruby on Rails and Certificate in Data Analytics/Big Data programs.

Following the success of this engagement, Social Strategy1 has again partnered with XTOL and Rutgers University, to help drive degree enrollments in the boot-camp style program beginning Mar. 29th, 2016.

Graduates of the Rutgers Data Analytics/Big Data Certificate program will:

• Gain a broad range of job-ready skills (technical and business) in numerous fields.
• Receive a Certificate of Completion.
• Complete a portfolio of professional-quality work to present to prospective employers.
• Leave with end-to-end project experience working on real life challenges

The certificate was developed using XTOL’s proven Story-Centered Curriculum approach — an approach in which students are placed in authentic, team-based, professional roles that incorporate knowledge and skill-based tasks. In the program, faculty members mentor the students and evaluate student performance on work produced.

Rutgers University will offer the following courses, which when taken sequentially, comprises the Data Analytics/Big Data Certificate:

• Data Analytics – Discovering and Exploiting Patterns in Data
  Understanding Customers: 4 weeks (30 hours per week); 8 weeks (15 hours per week)
  Predicting Profitability and Customer Preferences: 4 weeks (30 hours per week); 8 weeks (15 hours per week)
• Big Data – Advanced Skills
  Web Mining: 8 weeks (30 hours per week); 16 weeks (15 hours per week)
  Deep Analytics and Visualization: 6 weeks (30 hours per week); 12 weeks (15 hours per week)

“Utilizing XTOL’s proven Story-Centered Curriculum approach, the Rutgers certificate program provides critical skills to individuals who don’t necessarily have a computer science background,” said Stephen Carter, Director of the Center for Innovation Education at Rutgers University. “Students acquire authentic experience at a more realistic pace conducive to learning and at a cost that they can afford.”

One of the unique aspects of the university certificate program is the mentoring provided to students by faculty members. The programs offer the convenience of an entirely online curriculum as well as individual and team-based faculty mentorship. Designed and delivered by current and former faculty of Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, and Yale Universities, Rutgers subject matter experts bring extensive experience to the programs.

Stephen Carter, Director of the Center for Innovation Education said,

“We are excited about this innovative program and believe it to be a valuable option for professionals who wish to expand their skill-set in the areas of data analytics and big data. In partnership with XTOL, we are responding to the growing demand for highly skilled analytical employees in New Jersey and beyond. “

For more information and to request an information packet about the Data Analytics/Big Data certificate program, visit http://bit.ly/RutgersBigData. A live information session will be held on campus on March 1st at 6pm, with online information sessions taking place on February 22nd at 7pm and March 12th at 10am. Individuals can register for information sessions at http://bit.ly/RutgersBigDataWebinar and http://bit.ly/RutgersBigDataInfoSession.