Issues and lessons learned in the development of academic study programs in data science

Abstract

In recent years, Data Science has become an emerging education and research discipline all over the world. Software industry shows an increasing and even quite intensive interest for academic education in this area. In this paper, we announce main motivation factors for creating a new study program in Data Science at Faculty of Technical Sciences of University of Novi Sad, and discuss why it is important to nurture the culture of interdisciplinary orientation of such program from early beginning of undergraduate studies. Also, we announce how we structured the new study program and addressed the main issues that come from evident industry requirements. The program was initiated in 2017, both B.Sc. and M.Sc. level, and we present in the paper the experiences collected through the first three years of its execution.