MSc Data Mining: University of Westminster

Introduction

The course has been designed to address the need to propel information gathering and data organisation and to discover hidden patterns and trends in large, and possibly distributed, databases. It focuses on the development of solutions to real-world problems through the use of applications and case studies, while providing a deep appreciation of the underlying models and techniques.

Course Content

You will be exposed to the entire data mining process; emphasis, however, will be on the discovery or modelling phase. You will apply techniques such as decision trees, logistic regression, neural networks, association rules, and cluster analysis in relation to areas such as customer relationship management, fraud detection, drug prescription, and public health planning and surveillance. You will also gain strong exposure to state-of-the-art software such as SAS Enterprise Miner, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services, Oracle Data Mining Suite.

Core modules:

• Data Warehousing and Data Mining
• Database Languages
• Statistical Data Mining
• Data Mining Applications
• Text Mining

Options modules:

• Business theory
• Distributed Systems
• Enterprise Resource Planning
• Accounting and Financial Modelling
• Multivariate Statistics and Marketing Decision Support
• Operational Research
• Associated Careers

Graduates will find employment as consultants or advanced data analysts, or as members of technical/analytics teams supporting the decision making of middle and top management in organisations of different sizes operating in diverse sectors, including finance, marketing, and healthcare. They will be expected to work in public limited companies (such as Prudential, Abbey, Glaxo-Wellcome, Unilever), retail head offices, the BBC, public sector organisations such as the NHS and primary care trusts, civil service departments and local councils, as well as in the host of banks, brokers and regulators that make up the City, along with all the specialist support consultancies in IT and market research and forecasting, all of whom use data for the full range of decision making.

Entry Requirements

The course is aimed at those with a good Honours degree in a discipline with a significant quantitative and information technology element such as engineering and economics, and will be of particular interest to those with a mathematics or statistics degree. It will also appeal to operational, business, information and data analysts wishing or needing to strengthen their skills in extracting useful information from the increasing amount of data they are exposed to.