Overview
Big data is a popular term used to describe the exponential growth and availability of structured and unstructured data. In this unit, you will explore big data within the context of business intelligence. In this unit, you will learn concepts of business intelligence, alignment of big data to business intelligence and how big data technologies can be used in building organisational business intelligence. You will learn how big data is changing businesses and how organisations can take advantage of big data in decision making. You will learn how organisations are integrating non-traditional unstructured data with the traditional structured enterprise data to do the business intelligence analysis. In order to understand these, you will learn big data analytical tools and technologies to help solve authentic business problems and make effective business decisions.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Prerequisites: COIT20250 e-Business Systems, COIT20245 Introduction to Programming and COIT20247 Database Design and Development. Anti-Requisites: If you have completed unit COIT20236 then you cannot take this unit.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 2 - 2024
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of 'pass' in order to pass the unit. If any 'pass/fail' tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully ('pass' grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the 'assessment task' section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback - Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from Student Unit and Teaching Evaluation
Most students rated the unit as Exceptional.
To continue with the good practices.
Feedback from ICT Course Committee
Aligning the unit with the latest SFIA 9 released.
To identify and integrate specific SFIA 9 skill categories relevant to the unit.
Feedback from Classroom Feedback
More hands-on exercises.
To add tutorial exercises based on the Spark ecosystem running in Google Colab, by referencing resources such as https://praxis-qr.github.io/BDSN/ ;https://colab.research.google.com/github/pnavaro/big-data/.
- Apply concepts and principles of big data to evaluate and explain how large volume of structured and unstructured data are managed in an organisation
- Analyse critically and reflect on how organisations are including non-traditional valuable data with the traditional enterprise data to do the business intelligence analysis
- Critically analyse and evaluate different big data technologies used for decision making in an organisation
- Develop big data strategy for data-centric organisations to meet client requirements
- Apply big data architecture, tools, and technologies for decision making and problem solving in the organisational context.
Australian Computer Society (ACS) recognises the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). SFIA is in use in over 100 countries and provides a widely used and consistent definition of ICT skills. SFIA is increasingly being used when developing job descriptions and role profiles.
ACS members can use the tool MySFIA to build a skills profile at https://www.acs.org.au/professionalrecognition/mysfia-b2c.html
This unit contributes to the following workplace skills as defined by SFIA. The SFIA code is included:
- Research(RSCH)
- Data Management (DATM)
- Emerging Technology Monitoring (EMRG)
- Data Analysis (DTAN)
- Application Support (ASUP)
-
Analytics (INAN)
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment - 35% | |||||
| 2 - Presentation - 25% | |||||
| 3 - Project (applied) - 40% | |||||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Knowledge | |||||
| 2 - Communication | |||||
| 3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills | |||||
| 4 - Research | |||||
| 5 - Self-management | |||||
| 6 - Ethical and Professional Responsibility | |||||
| 7 - Leadership | |||||
| 8 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | |||||
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment - 35% | ||||||||
| 2 - Presentation - 25% | ||||||||
| 3 - Project (applied) - 40% | ||||||||
Textbooks
Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business (2013)
Edition: latest (2013)
Authors: Schmarzo, Bill
Wiley
Indianapolis Indianapolis , Indiana , USA
ISBN: 978-1-118-73957-0
Binding: Paperback
Business Intelligence and Analytics: Systems for Decision Support 10th Global (2015)
Edition: 10th (2015)
Authors: Turban , Sharda & Delen
Pearson
Upper Saddle River Upper Saddle River , NJ , USA
ISBN: 9781292009209
Binding: Paperback
Next Generation Databases: NoSQL, NewSQL, and Big Data (2015)
Authors: Harrison, Guy
Apress Media
New York City New York City , New York , USA
ISBN: 978-1-4842-1330-8
Binding: Paperback
Scalable Big Data Architecture: A practitioner’s guide to choosing relevant big data architecture (2016)
(2016)
Authors: Azarmi, Bahaaldine
Apress Media
New York City, New York City, , New York, , USA
ISBN: 978-1-4842-1327-8
Binding: Paperback
IT Resources
- CQUniversity Student Email
- Internet
- Unit Website (Moodle)
- Tableau
All submissions for this unit must use the referencing style: Harvard (author-date)
For further information, see the Assessment Tasks.
m.jha@cqu.edu.au
Module/Topic
1. Introduction to Big Data
2. An Overview of Business Intelligence, Analytics, and Decision Support
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
1. Big Data Business Opportunities
2. Foundation and Technologies for Decision Making
Chapter
1. Chapter 1 from Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business. Author: B. Schmarzo
2. Chapter 2 from Business Intelligence and Analytics: Systems for Decision Support.
Authors: R Sharda, D Delen,E Turban
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
1. Big Data Technologies: Overview of Hadoop; MapReduce; scripting language
2. Information Management and Business Reporting, Visual Analytics
Chapter
1. Chapter 2 from Next Generation Databases: NoSQL, NewSQL, and Big Data. Author: G. Harrison
2. Chapter 4 from Business Intelligence and Analytics: Systems for Decision Support.
Authors: R Sharda, D Delen, E Turban
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
1. Next Generation Databases
2. Predictive Modeling: classification versus regression; evaluating predictive models and cross validation; algorithms for predictive modelling
Chapter
1. Chapter 4, 5 & 6 from Next Generation Databases: NoSQL, NewSQL, and Big Data. Author: G. Harrison
2. Chapter 6 from Business Intelligence and Analytics: Systems for Decision Support.
Authors: R Sharda, D Delen, E Turban
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
1. Understanding Value Creation Process
2. Business Analytics, Text Analytics, Text Mining, and Sentiment Analysis
Chapter
1. Chapter 7 from Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business. Author: B. Schmarzo
2. Chapter 7 from Business Intelligence and Analytics: Systems for Decision Support.
Authors: R Sharda, D Delen, E Turban
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Enjoy the break.
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Web Analytics, Web Mining, and Social Analytics
Chapter
Chapter 8 from Business Intelligence and Analytics: Systems for Decision Support.
Authors: R Sharda, D Delen, E Turban
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Creating the Big Data Strategy
Chapter
Chapter 6 from Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business.
Author: B. Schmarzo
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Big Data User Experience Ramification
Chapter
Chapter 8 from Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business.
Author: B. Schmarzo
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Identifying Big Data Use Cases
Chapter
Chapter 9 from Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business.
Author: B. Schmarzo
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Cloud Computing and Business Intelligence: emerging trends and future impacts of business analytics
Chapter
Chapter 14 from Business Intelligence and Analytics: Systems for Decision Support. Authors: R Sharda, D Delen, E Turban
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Solution Engineering
Chapter
Chapter 10 from Big Data: Understanding How Data Powers Big Business. Author: B. Schmarzo.
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
1.Big Data Architectures
2.Big Data Reference Architectures
Chapter
Online Resources
Online Resources
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
No exam for this unit
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
Unit Coordinator: Dr. Meena Jha
Room 2.09, Level 2; 400 Kent Street; Sydney NSW 2000
P +61 2 9324 5776 | X 55776 | E m.jha@cqu.edu.au
1 Written Assessment
COIT20253 Assessment 1: Exploring Big Data Opportunities for Value Creation
Due Date Week 6 Friday 11:45 PM AEST
Weighting:35%
Assessment Task:
This assessment will help you understand the strategic importance of Big Data in your chosen industry and develop a practical plan for its implementation, backed by real-life examples and data-driven insights. In this assessment, you are required to choose one of the following industries: Healthcare, Insurance, Retailing, Marketing, Finance, Human resources, Manufacturing, Telecommunications, or Travel.
Assessment Overview: This assessment consists of two parts:
Part A: Report on Big Data Opportunities and Value Creation
In Part A, you are required to prepare a detailed report on how Big Data could create opportunities and help in the value-creation process for your chosen industry. Your report should cover the following aspects:
New Business Insights: Describe the new business insights that Big Data can provide for your industry.
Illustrate how Big Data can transform your industry by introducing new services or entering new markets.
Additionally, you should elaborate on how you can leverage four key Big Data business drivers—structured data, unstructured data, low-latency data, and predictive analytics—to create value for the chosen industry. Use frameworks such as Porter's Value Chain Analysis and Porter's Five Forces Analysis to identify how these Big Data business drivers could impact your business initiatives. You are also required to aid your understanding with diagrams. Generate your diagram using any drawing tool such as MS Visio.
Part B: Identifying and Utilizing a Relevant Big Data Dataset
In Part B, you will identify at least one dataset relevant to your chosen industry. The datasets can be identified using an Open dataset repository such as Kaggle.com. The dataset can be a collection of structured, unstructured, or semi-structured data. Your task is to:
Dataset Selection: Discuss how you chose this dataset among other available datasets.
Metadata Presentation: Identify and present the metadata of the dataset.
Opportunities Identification: Describe the opportunities that the chosen dataset could create for your industry.
Report Length and Requirements:
The report should be approximately 2500 words.
You are required to conduct extensive reading and reference more than 10 articles relevant to Big Data business impacts, opportunities, and the value creation process.
Provide in-text referencing of the chosen articles.
Guidelines for Completion:
Research: Conduct thorough research on Big Data applications in your chosen industry.
Analysis: Use analytical frameworks to structure your findings and insights.
Critical Thinking: Apply critical thinking to assess the impact of Big Data technologies.
Referencing: Ensure proper citation and referencing of all sources used. Include a Cover page (Student name, Student ID, Unit ID, Campus, Lecturer, and Tutor name).
Include a Table of Contents (this should be MS-Word generated).
Week 6 Friday (23 Aug 2024) 11:45 pm AEST
Assessment 1 is due on Friday of Week 6 at 11:45 PM AEST
Week 8 Friday (6 Sept 2024)
Within two weeks of submission
You will be assessed based on your ability to analyze and reflect on how organizations are leveraging non-traditional valuable data (unstructured, real-time) with traditional enterprise data (structured) for business intelligence and value creation. The marking criteria for this assessment are as follows.
Part A (25 marks):
Executive Summary - 2 marks
Table of Contents - 1 mark
Introduction - 2 marks
New Business Insights and Big Data Opportunities - 2 marks
Optimization-2 marks
Revenue Opportunities: 2 marks
Industry Transformation: 2 marks
Value Creation using Big Data - 2 marks
Porter’s Value Chain Analysis - 3 marks
Porter’s Five Forces Analysis - 3 marks
Conclusion - 2 marks
References - 2 marks
Part B (10 marks):
Dataset identification – 2 marks
Metadata of the chosen dataset – 3 marks
Business opportunities through the chosen dataset – 5 marks
- Apply concepts and principles of big data to evaluate and explain how large volume of structured and unstructured data are managed in an organisation
- Analyse critically and reflect on how organisations are including non-traditional valuable data with the traditional enterprise data to do the business intelligence analysis
- Knowledge
- Communication
- Cognitive, technical and creative skills
- Research
- Self-management
- Ethical and Professional Responsibility
2 Presentation
COIT20253 Assessment 2: Presentation on a Big Data Strategy
Due Date Week 9 Friday 11:45 PM AEST Weighting:25%
Assessment Task: This assessment will help you develop a practical and strategic approach to utilizing Big Data in your chosen industry and enhance your ability to communicate your strategies effectively through a presentation.
Assessment Overview: This assessment consists of developing a comprehensive Big Data strategy document and delivering a presentation based on this strategy. You can choose the same industry as your previous assessment or select a new one. You will use the dataset identified in your previous assessment or opt for a different one. The presentation will be for 15 minutes and will start from week 10. You are required to submit the presentation deck on Moodle by Friday week 9, 11:45 PM, irrespective of your presentation schedule. Your tutor will send the presentation schedule by week 6.
Assessment Steps: Your Big Data strategy document should include the following:
- Targeted Business Strategy:
Develop a targeted business strategy for the application of Big Data in your chosen industry.
Break down the business strategy into key business initiatives. - Outcomes and Critical Success Factors:
Identify the outcomes and critical success factors to support the key business initiatives. - Task Identification:
Determine the specific tasks needed to execute and support the targeted business initiatives. - Data Sources Identification:
Identify the data sources required to support your business initiatives, including the dataset from your previous assessment and any additional datasets needed. - Turning Strategies into Actions:
Identify the Big Data analytics and business intelligence requirements.
Specify how the data will be used to gain actionable insights to support your business initiatives.
Week 9 Friday (13 Sept 2024) 11:45 pm AEST
All presentation slides must be submitted on Moodle by Week 9 Friday at 11:45 PM AEST. The presentation will start from week 10 and continue till week 12.
Exam Week Friday (18 Oct 2024)
The assessment marks will be released on the certification date as the presentation will continue till week 12.
You will be assessed based on your ability to develop Big Data strategies for data-centric organizations to meet client requirements and to apply Big Data architecture, tools, and technologies for decision making and problem-solving. The marking criteria for this assessment are as follows.
Demonstrated Understanding of Strategy Document - 6 marks
Turning Strategies into Actions - 6 marks
Clarity, Consistency and Structure of Presentation - 3 marks
Use of Quality References - 3 marks
Visual Aids - 3 marks
Time Management - 2 marks
Quality Response to Questions - 2 marks
- Develop big data strategy for data-centric organisations to meet client requirements
- Apply big data architecture, tools, and technologies for decision making and problem solving in the organisational context.
- Knowledge
- Communication
- Cognitive, technical and creative skills
- Research
- Self-management
- Ethical and Professional Responsibility
3 Project (applied)
COIT20253 Assessment 3: Analyzing Business Datasets with Big Data Tools for Strategy Formulation
Due Date Week 12 Friday 11:45 PM AEST
Weighting: 40%
Assessment Task: This is an individual assessment. You are required to produce a report based on the Big Data strategy document you developed for Assessment 2 (Presentation). Additionally, you will analyze the datasets relevant to the business that you identified in Assessment 1 using Big Data tools and describe how the outputs of these tools could help you create the Big Data Strategy.
Your assessment will follow the Report Structure as follows:
Big Data Use Cases: Identify Big Data use cases. This is based on your assessment 2.
Critical Analysis of Big Data Technologies: Analyze different Big Data technologies, data models, processing architectures, and query languages. Discuss the strengths and limitations of each.
Big Data Analytics and Business Intelligence Tools: Explore various analytics and BI tools applicable to your chosen datasets. Explain how these tools can help businesses gain actionable insights from Big Data.
Big Data Technologies for Data Management: Discuss the technologies used for data collection, storage, transformation, processing, and analysis to support your use cases.
Big Data Technology Stack and Processing Architecture: Illustrate the technology stack and processing architecture required for your use cases. Provide a rationale for each choice.
User Experience for Decision-Making: Specify the user experiences designed to aid in decision-making. Your audience is executive business professionals with extensive business experience but limited ICT knowledge. They need to understand how new Big Data technologies applied to the datasets can benefit their business.
Report Requirements:
- Include a Cover page (Student name, Student ID, Unit ID, Campus, Lecturer, and Tutor name).
- The length of the report should be around 3000 words.
- Conduct extensive reading of more than 10 articles relevant to the chosen Big Data use cases, technologies, architectures, and data models.
- Provide in-text referencing of the chosen articles.
- Include a Table of Contents (this should be MS-Word generated).
The report must adhere to a standard report structure, including an executive summary. Ensure clarity, coherence, and proper citation throughout the document. This assessment will demonstrate your ability to develop a strategic Big Data plan and communicate its benefits effectively to a non-technical executive audience.
Week 12 Friday (4 Oct 2024) 11:45 pm AEST
The assessment is due on Friday week 12 11:45 AEST.
Marks of this assignment will be released on the certification date.
You will be assessed based on your ability to critically analyse, use and evaluate different Big Data technologies and to apply Big Data architecture, tools, and technologies to support Big Data use cases. The marking criteria for this assessment are as follows.
Executive Summary - 3 marks
Table of Contents - 2 marks
Introduction - 2 marks
Big Data Use Cases - 3 marks
Critical Analysis of Big Data Technologies - 8 marks
Use of Big Data tools on the dataset - 5 marks
Critical analysis of the output - 8 marks
Big Data Architecture Solution - 3 marks
Conclusion - 3 marks
References - 3 marks
- Critically analyse and evaluate different big data technologies used for decision making in an organisation
- Apply big data architecture, tools, and technologies for decision making and problem solving in the organisational context.
- Knowledge
- Communication
- Cognitive, technical and creative skills
- Research
- Self-management
- Ethical and Professional Responsibility
As a CQUniversity student you are expected to act honestly in all aspects of your academic work.
Any assessable work undertaken or submitted for review or assessment must be your own work. Assessable work is any type of work you do to meet the assessment requirements in the unit, including draft work submitted for review and feedback and final work to be assessed.
When you use the ideas, words or data of others in your assessment, you must thoroughly and clearly acknowledge the source of this information by using the correct referencing style for your unit. Using others’ work without proper acknowledgement may be considered a form of intellectual dishonesty.
Participating honestly, respectfully, responsibly, and fairly in your university study ensures the CQUniversity qualification you earn will be valued as a true indication of your individual academic achievement and will continue to receive the respect and recognition it deserves.
As a student, you are responsible for reading and following CQUniversity’s policies, including the Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure. This policy sets out CQUniversity’s expectations of you to act with integrity, examples of academic integrity breaches to avoid, the processes used to address alleged breaches of academic integrity, and potential penalties.
What is a breach of academic integrity?
A breach of academic integrity includes but is not limited to plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, cheating, contract cheating, and academic misconduct. The Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure defines what these terms mean and gives examples.
Why is academic integrity important?
A breach of academic integrity may result in one or more penalties, including suspension or even expulsion from the University. It can also have negative implications for student visas and future enrolment at CQUniversity or elsewhere. Students who engage in contract cheating also risk being blackmailed by contract cheating services.
Where can I get assistance?
For academic advice and guidance, the Academic Learning Centre (ALC) can support you in becoming confident in completing assessments with integrity and of high standard.
What can you do to act with integrity?
