This month we are proud to present a thoughtful blog post from one of early members, Dr Sam Buxton. Sam's words resonate with our presentation earlier this year on what business analytics skills companies want and what tools they use. That talk covered the results of a survey that we ran with over 200 participants. The results showed that companies most value the ability to use spreadsheets, i.e., Excel, a solid knowledge of statistics and the ability to visualise and present data well.  Best, Chris, Chair of BAEF  As an educator of business analytics, it is important to consider the environment in which we teach. Over the summer, there have been some interesting talks on AI in education, embedding business analytics in accounting programmes and what skills and tools do companies require of business analysts. This post focuses on students’ perspectives of the tools they think they need. Teaching business analytics to non-specialists at both undergraduate and master’s levels ...

Presented by one of our board members Dr Marios Kremantzis Brief Description of the Session Marios sits on the organising committee at the BAEF and is Chair of the Operational Research Society’s OR-Analytics-Education Special Interest Group. In this session he will present current work related to two highly quantitative units that adopted Chatbot as a teaching assistant: Prescriptive Analytics as part of the MSc Business Analytics, and Mathematics for Economists, for BSc Economics students. This highly prescient subject promises to be an informative and enjoyable session with other colleagues dedicated to teaching Business Analytics well. Profile: Marios Kremantzis is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Business Analytics at the University of Bristol, where he also serves as the Program Director of the MSc Business Analytics and as Senior PGT Tutor. Additionally, he is the Co-Editor in Chief of the open-access journal Intelligent Technologies in Education (ITEd). With a PhD in Manageme...

A link to the recording of this event can be found in the previous post. On 14 th December 2023 the BAEF held a webinar discussing the rising use of AI in industry and what we as educators can do to prepare our students for working within environments that use AI systems.  The event was well attended, and the four speakers were Marilena Karanika who is Head of Innovation at Experian, Balagopal Madhusoodhanan who, at the time, was Principal Architect, Supply Chain & Intelligent Automation at TJX inc. (now with Chanel), Luke Vilain who is leading UBSs risk assessment for Generative AI, and James Winters who is the AI Ethics and Governance Officer at Deeper Insights.   All four have a wealth of experience in using and implementing AI in highly regulated environments, and they are all keen proponents of the ethical use of AI.  The session opened with the guests describing what they do in their jobs and outside of them.   The first question focused on what the...

Thank you again to all attendees, it was a thought provoking and sometimes surprising session. It was heartening to hear that the skills of design, problem structuring, interpretation and communication are thought by everyone to be very important. Most important of all - critical thinking and assessment!

  Greetings educators We are proud to announce an exciting seminar coming up on 14th December between 5 and 6pm: ‘Embracing the fourth industrial revolution: Industry perspectives on the impact of AI’ with four industry leaders in the field: Marilena Karanika Marilena is Head of Data Innovation at Experian, she has over 10 years’ experience in credit risk modelling and analytics and has won the WiCA 2021 Award for Innovator of the Year. She is passionate about the power of financial education and collaborates with universities and professional bodies to deliver talks promoting a wider understanding of analytics as we move toward a more ethical and inclusive future of work. Balagopal Madhusoodhanan Bala is Principal Architect, Supply Chain & Intelligent Automation at TJX inc., a top AI voice on LinkedIn, and is involved with Meal Corp Inc. (Chief Data Ninja!) who are on a mission to foster education for impactful low code digital transformation. He has a particular interest in ...