This paper is from Session 1E: Building capacity in Statistics majors

which comes under Topic 1: Sustaining strengths and building capacity in statistics education

Skills needed for modern day statisticians

Presenter

• Andrej Blejec (National Institute of Biology, Slovenia)

Abstract

Currently we face tremendous changes in availability of information, including Big data, which are not only large in numbers of observations or variables or both, but also unstructured. New internet-based tools for analysis and visualization enable “data scientists” to quickly produce appealing data summaries. What skills are needed for modern day statisticians in this fast changing environment, where data are often short lived and results quickly become obsolete? We must emphasize visualization, with dynamic and interactive graphics. Data need to be structured and often collected from a plethora of sources, requiring additional programming skills as well as proficiency in data analysis. But no technical or theoretical skills can make statistics alive without context. As always, statisticians need to communicate with professionals and general public. To be competitive with all others who want to analyze data, we have to be flexible, responsive and productive, using statistical know-how as the competitive advantage.