MSc Digital and Technology Solutions Specialist (Data Analytics) Degree Apprenticeship

Program Overview

This MSc Digital and Technology Solutions Specialist (Data Analytics) Degree Apprenticeship combines academic study with work-based experience to develop expertise for a career in digital and technology. Through compulsory modules, apprentices gain skills in areas such as machine learning, big data analytics, and security operations, while applying their knowledge in the workplace. The course emphasizes work-based learning and utilizes a variety of technologies to enhance student engagement and career preparation.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

Our MSc Digital and Technology Solutions Specialist (Data Analytics) Degree Apprenticeship has been designed to offer a combination of academic study with work-based experience, helping you to develop the expertise and skills needed for a specialist career in the digital and technology field. You will have the opportunity to apply your learning in a workplace environment and reinforce your studies. You will also be expected to draw heavily upon your workplace in your studies, applying concepts and trying out techniques and tools that you have studied. As an apprentice with us, you will have access to all our learning and development resources as well as specialist software, including the Microsoft Imagine Software Package.

Outline:

The award of MSc requires 180 credits, which are to be completed through four semesters across two academic years (typically 24 calendar months, including End Point Assessment). The specific course structure varies for the different specialist pathways.

Year 1 and 2

• Compulsory modules
• Consultancy and Tech Innovation:
This module explores the skills needed to understand, and work in, the complex multi-sourced environment that supports business change. Focusing on the strategic management of leading-edge technology, you will examine the organisational structure of IT, including systems integrators and consultancy, and gain an overview of the IT consulting world, its principles and practice.
• Team Dynamics and Leadership: This module will cover the structure, development, leadership and management of teams that plan and deliver projects.
It will deal with relations, interactions and communications within and beyond the team. You'll also consider high performance, self-directed, dispersed and virtual teams.
• Managing Innovation and Change: During this module you will explore the nature of innovation and the need for it in the management of a modern organisation.
It will examine the complex process of organisational change as it occurs in specific organisational contexts.
• Machine Learning: Machine learning is an application of artificial intelligence that provides systems with the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed.
This module familiarises you with some basic machine learning algorithms and techniques and their applications, as well as general questions related to analysing and handling large data sets. Several software libraries and data sets publicly available will be used to illustrate the application of these algorithms. The emphasis will be thus on machine learning algorithms and applications, with some broad explanation of the underlying principles.
• Big Data Analytics: Big data is a fast-growing field and skills in the area are some of the most in-demand today.
Big data technologies cover a range of architectures, frameworks and algorithms designed to handle very large and often highly complex datasets. The module will enable you to understand big data, its applications and associated issues for storing, managing, processing and analysing massive amounts of datasets, as well as become familiar with software tools and frameworks underpinning big data analytics. You will also acquire the knowledge of statistical, mathematical and machine-learning techniques, and develop the ability to design and implement big data analytics modelling and applications to real-world problems. New threats are emerging as digital technologies permeate into most aspects of work and social life and in transactions between parties opening potential for fraud, deception and corruption. The module covers: IISP Security Skill Groups D (Information Assurance Methodologies), F.1 (Incident Management), G (Audit Assurance and Review) H (Business Continuity Planning and Management).
• Apprenticeship Project: Towards the end of your apprenticeship, the University will agree a business-related project with you and your employer.
This will be based on your job role and academic content of your course. The agreed project will present a typical business task, appropriate for demonstrating the skills and knowledge on the standard. This module is a pre-gateway to the End Point Assessment (EPA).
• Professional Development: This module aims to capture and develop your portfolio, which will present relevant evidence from real-work projects (excluding Apprenticeship Project).
The portfolio you develop through this module will be used to help you answer questions in the professional discussion part of the End Point Assessment. This work-based module will require you to continuously reflect and identify areas for further development in order to demonstrate that you have applied the knowledge, skills and behaviours in the apprenticeship standard, under the guidance of work mentor and university tutor.

Assessment:

The course has been designed to offer a strong combination of academic study with vocational application. We focus on developing your expertise and skills for a professional career in the digital and technology field. Throughout the course, you'll be able to apply your learning in the workplace and reinforce your university-based studies. Modules are assessed predominantly by coursework assignments, reflecting the work-based orientation of the course. Although not all assessment can be based on work undertaken in your place of employment, this is the preferred mode where possible. At all levels the assessment of modules includes a mix of summative and formative elements. A key goal is to ensure that assessments support your learning experience.

Teaching:

The learning and teaching approach for this course draws on the experience of our academic staff in delivering part-time and work-based provision over three years, combined with our expertise in the digital and technology field. We promote the principles of scholarship, employability and active learning. The approach is to combine theory with professional practice. You will be introduced to the key theories and concepts and be able to explore these in relation to examples and real-world case studies drawn from their own professional practice, as well as those provided by the academic staff team. You will be encouraged to develop critical scholarship and independent learning, and be actively engaged as you progress through your studies. The culmination of this is the synoptic project which is a major piece of work that combines your academic studies with professional practice. This work-based, business-related project provides substantive evidence to demonstrate your ability to apply your skills and knowledge. The End Point Assessment (EPA) integrates the project outcomes and presentation into the overall synoptic project assessment. It will take place over around six months, during the final year of the course. It is designed to assess apprentices in a consistent way, irrespective of their workplace. A work-based learning adopted in this course provides a student-centred approach, allowing you to identify and act upon your subject knowledge and theory and how they relate to your employment. The teaching and learning strategy includes the provision of blended modes of delivery to enhance the active engagement of all students in the learning process. Technology expertise is a core element of this course and to our learning and teaching strategy. You will have access to a wide variety of technologies such as Oracle, R, JAVA, HADOOP and Eclipse. To support the delivery of the course, staff will routinely draw on a range of technological resources e.g. videos wikis webinars screen capture technologies We will ensure that the Virtual Learning Environment (Blackboard) supports you both on and off campus. We use electronic submission and feedback where appropriate, along with a range of technology solutions to support communication between staff and students.

Careers:

This MSc Digital and Technology Solutions Specialist (Data Analytics) Degree Apprenticeship aims to prepare you as a professional who can facilitate and influence the provisioning of digital and technology solutions, with a focus on technology leadership combined with specialist skills and knowledge within the dynamics of organisations.