The Current State of Business Intelligence in Academia

Current trends suggest that academia may be behind the curve in delivering effective Business Intelligence programs and course offerings to students. In December 2009 and 2010, the AIS Special Interest Group on Decision Support, Knowledge and Data Management Systems (SIGDSS) and the Teradata University Network (TUN) cosponsored the Business Intelligence Congresses and conducted surveys to improve the understanding of the state of BI in academia. This panel report describes the key findings and best practices that were identified. The article also serves as a “call to action” for universities regarding the need to close a widening gap between the BI skills of university graduates in Information Systems and other fields and BI market needs. The IS field is well positioned to be the leader in creating the next generation BI workforce. To do so, it is important for IS to begin moving on this opportunity now. We believe the necessary first step is for BI and IS leaders to advance the BI curriculum.