Higher education embraces artificial intelligence and predictive analytics with SAS® Viya®

Kennesaw State University integrating SAS advanced analytics platform across degree programs

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Sep 25, 2018, 08:45 ET

CARY, N.C., Sept. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- With higher education institutions searching for simpler, less expensive ways to make sense of data, many colleges and universities are choosing the cloud-based analytics offered by the SAS^® Platform and its SAS^® Viya^® products. SAS Viya puts the latest in machine learning, artificial intelligence, forecasting and text analytics in the hands of all levels of user, from professors to students, data scientists, institutional researchers and university leaders.

For instance, at George Mason University, a cloud-based implementation of SAS Viya serves as a single platform for reporting, visualization, and statistical and predictive analytics. Oklahoma State University uses the software's powerful data visualization capabilities to create a 360-degree view of a student to bolster freshman performance. OSU also plans to use SAS predictive analytics to answer critical questions about first-year retention, among many other things.

Kennesaw State provides real-world experience with latest SAS^® technologies

While some universities have selected SAS Viya to help the institution run more effectively, others are putting the power of its advanced analytics in the hands of professors, students and researchers.

Georgia's Kennesaw State University is a leader in analytics education through its Analytics and Data Science Institute. Jennifer Priestley, Associate Dean of Kennesaw's Graduate College and Professor of Statistics and Data Science, is a pioneer in graduate, undergraduate degree and professional certificate programs in analytics utilizing SAS. Adding SAS Viya to the university's analytics arsenal has been a natural extension of years of collaboration.

"We have strived to evolve our offerings to match talent needs, and SAS has long been a part of those efforts. Our programs offer real-world experience and the analytics skills employers are seeking," said Priestley. "More and more, that means expertise in advanced analytics like artificial intelligence and machine learning."

Kennesaw students at the master's and PhD levels are incorporating SAS Viya into their research. Faculty members, primarily in the Department of Statistics and Analytical Sciences, are adding SAS Viya capabilities to their classes. But that is just the beginning.

"We foresee all of our master's and doctoral students using SAS Viya in some capacity in the upcoming year," said Priestley.

In addition, this spring, undergraduates will also be able to access SAS Viya for the first time, where they will work with real data from a credit lender. The project requires the students to process and clean the data, and work with more than 500 predictors to develop and evaluate sophisticated models. Such practical applications could be attractive to talent-hungry financial services companies, where SAS is commonly used to combat fraud, optimize marketing efforts and manage customer relationships.

Students, professors and researchers can also take advantage of the ability of SAS Viya to integrate with open source applications like Python, R, Hadoop and Java.

Learn more about the capabilities of SAS Viya and how SAS is used in higher education.

Other higher education institutions that have chosen SAS Viya to modernize administration, teaching and research include Data ScienceTech Institute (France), University of Technology Sydney (Australia), North-West University (South Africa), Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans and Military Families, University of Arkansas Walton College of Business, University of Pennsylvania and Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine (Japan).

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