The Big Data Gap: Is There Congruence Between Data Skills Demanded By The Industry And Canadian Academic Preparation?

This thesis examines occupations in the Canadian Big Data industry. Through analysing Canadian job advertisements, the aim is to understand what skills a professional in a data occupation requires. Supplementing with a content analysis of graduate master‘s programs focusing in Data Science, Analytics or Big Data the study explores Canadian educational institution offerings which prepare students for jobs in the field. Using topic modeling methods and typologies results show a fit between universities‘ presented content and what skills are demanded by the industry. An updated framework of Todd et al. (1995) is presented for easier comparison and recommendations of creating undergraduate data programs are discussed. Contributions made by this study can aid universities in a structuring their curricula for ―Big Data‖ programs. Furthermore, this study contributes to the literature by explaining multiple job qualifications which allows for more standardized job descriptions, benefiting the employers, job seekers and universities.