About the DSBA Program
The Data Science and Business Analytics Master’s program is designed for early-career professionals with 2-8 years of experience to upskill them to become technology and business leaders in information-driven enterprises. The designed coursework establishes the foundations of data science, trains on data engineering and machine learning techniques, and imparts practical business analysis skills. These learnings are coupled with a unique capstone project that applies it to a hands-on project relevant to industry. World-class faculty from the Departments of Computational and Data Sciences, and Management Studies lead the courses through online lectures, tutorials and lab sessions.
Program Structure
Students admitted to the M.Tech.(Online) program on Data Science and Business Analytics need to complete the following requirements within a 2-4 year period to earn their degree. Students must get a passing grade in a course for it to be counted toward their degree.
- Core courses (12 credits): These three courses of 4 credits each have to be mandatorily taken and completed by all students in the program. These are typically taken in the first and second semesters.
- Introduction to Data Science
- Foundations for Business Analytics
- Data Engineering at Scale
- Elective courses (20 credits): Students have to complete at least 20 credits of elective courses. Each course typically is for 3-4 credits. See the course details below. These courses can be taken at any time during the program, as long as the student meets its prerequisites. Some of these elective courses are listed below. Not all electives are offered in all years, and others may be added over time. See the Courses page for more details.
- Financial Analytics
- Practical Machine Learning
- Data Mining
- Operations Research
- High-performance Computing in Data Science
- Deep Learning and Computer Vision
- Capstone project (32 credits): A capstone project for 32 credits has to be completed over two terms, and can be started after completing all the core course requirements. The project topic will be proposed by the student, with relevance to their professional work, and utilizing skills gained during the degree program. A faculty mentor will offer high-level feedback on the project. There will be a midterm evaluation at the end of the first term and a final review after the second term, by a committee appointed by the Program Curriculum Committee (PCC).
Program Details
Each academic year has three terms. The first term is from August-December, the second from January-April, and the third summer term from May-July. The August and January terms (also called regular terms or semesters) will have lecture sessions for 16 weeks and 2 weeks for final evaluation, while the Summer term will have lectures for 10 weeks and 2 weeks for evaluation.
In each Aug and Jan term of the program, the candidate should register for 3-12 course credits, or up to 16 course+project credits, or up to 20 project credits. Course registration for summer term is optional, with a maximum of 8 course credits, 12 course+project credits, or 12 project credits. So students may complete the program in as early as 2 years, and typically within 3 years. Candidates may skip taking any course or project credits for at most two terms, if approved by your sponsoring institution. In addition, women can take up to 1 year of maternity break.
Courses follow a 10-point grading scale, with grades of A+ (10), A (9), B+ (8), B (7), C (6), D (5) and F (0). F is a failing grade. Students are permitted only 2 F grades in their program. Students should maintain a minimum CGPA of 4.0 in the first term and 5.0 in subsequent terms. The project credits will only be awarded a Pass/Fail grade.
On successfully completing the requirements of the degree program, the students will be awarded the M.Tech.(Online) degree by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. This is fully recognized as a Master’s degree as per the New Education Policy of the Ministry of Education, Government of India. It can be used as a qualification for any position or role requiring an M.Tech. degree as a prerequisite.
The official Student Guidelines for the program is available at https://iken.iisc.ac.in/mtech-online/sg.html.