Public Policy and Administration, MA Data Analytics for Public Policy Specialization

The data analytics specialization is intended for students who will use data analytics and statistics to address policy issues. Policy analysts and researchers who can use sophisticated statistical and computational methods can add insight and value to public policy decision-making by using big data to improve public services in public health, transportation, and law enforcement, predict and avert famine and droughts, and improve city infrastructures.

Please note that students must take the core MPPA 405-DL Statistics for Research before beginning specialization courses.

Curriculum

Core Courses (10 units)

Course Title
MPPA 401-DL/401-0Research Methods
MPPA 402-DL/402-0Elements of Public Finance and Budgeting
MPPA 403-DL/403-0Fundamentals of Public Administration
MPPA 404-DL/404-0Microeconomics for Public Policy Administration
MPPA 405-DL/405-0Statistics for Research
MPPA 406-DL/406-0Program Evaluation and Policy Analysis
MPPA 407-DL/407-0Scope and Theory of Public Policy
MPPA 408-DL/408-0Public Organization Theory & Management
MPPA 418-DL/418-0Ethics and Leadership
MPPA 498-DL/498-0The Capstone Project
or MPPA 590-DL Thesis Research

Specialization Courses (3 units)

Course Title
MSDS 400-DLMath for Modelers
Choose any two courses:
MSDS 410-DL
Supervised Learning Methods
MSDS 420-DL
Database Systems
MSDS 455-DL
Data Visualization
MSDS 460-DL
Decision Analytics
MSDS 476-DL
Business Process Analytics

About the Final Project

Students may pursue their capstone experience independently or as part of a team. As their final course, students take either the individual research project in an independent study format or the classroom final project class in which students integrate the knowledge they have gained in the core curriculum in work assigned by the instructor. In both cases students are guided by faculty in exploring the body of knowledge on public policy and administration while contributing research of practical value to the field. The capstone 590 thesis project and 498 capstone class count as one unit of credit.
 
Course Title
Choose one
MPPA 498-DL/498-0
The Capstone Project
MPPA 590-DL
Thesis Research