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“Data science begins with data. Nothing gets built without data. Data science continues with science. Accurate, persuasive and effective prediction requires patterns. The process of discovering that pattern is science. Any product worth building requires a reliable pattern to exist in the data.”
– Christopher Berry, co-founder and chief science officer of Authintic, in his article on recommendation engines in the current issue of Analytics.
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Analytics Section of INFORMS NewsInnovative Applications in Analytics Award
The Innovative Applications in Analytics Award, sponsored by the INFORMS Section on Analytics, recognizes creative and unique developments, applications or combinations of analytical techniques used in practice. The prize promotes the awareness of the value of analytics techniques in unusual applications or in creative combination to provide unique insights and/or business value.
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Special ArticlesBig data paying off for big companies
A new research report, “Big Data in Big Companies,” describes how 20 large firms benefit from big data projects. Report co-authors Tom Davenport of the International Institute for Analytics (IIA) and Jill Dyché of SAS, the leader in business analytics, explore how these companies have deployed analytics to generate value from their big data assets.
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Special ArticlesContinuing education courses for analytics professionals
The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences’ (INFORMS) Continuing Education program will offer its first two courses this fall. These intensive, two-day, in-person courses will provide analytical professionals with key skills, tools and methods that can be implemented immediately in a work environment.
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Tuesday, 31 July 2012 00:00 | Last Updated on Tuesday, 31 July 2012 12:39 | 
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Headlines
Psychometrics and test delivery supported with analytics
Certification and licensure testing company, Castle Worldwide, relies on SAS Analytics in its work with businesses, nonprofit associations and governments. Using SAS Office Analytics for Midsize Business from the leader in business analytics, Castle applies analytic rigor to help meet the moral and legal burdens of proof and the measurement accuracy required for standardized tests. Testing accuracy and fairness must be indisputable when tests determine who gets or keeps a job and who gets promoted or when public safety is at stake. When Castle engages in testing of medical and nursing specialties, for example, Castle's psychometric work prevents unqualified individuals from performing medical procedures.
SAS streamlined the company's analytics process and reduced its test development timeline by two to three weeks. This helped Castle expand to be able to serve industries that have rapid rates of change such as information technology and medical specialties where accuracy and speed are required to win contracts. One Castle client offers a certification test for those specializing in the field of HIV medicine. As the specialty rapidly advances, certification tests must, as well, to stay current.
"Before SAS, our analytics process was more operationally fragmented," said Andrew C. Dwyer, PhD, senior psychometrician at Castle Worldwide. "Pulling data from our databases, cleaning and restructuring it, analyzing it, and creating presentable reports were accomplished using multiple software programs, and it was a source of inefficiency for us. In addition, detailed documentation of our statistical processes, a legal imperative for us, was time consuming - and time is money. Now, SAS documents our workflow so we can more quickly replicate the process. That supports our excellent reputation in psychometrics and test delivery while providing us time and money-saving efficiencies."
Castle uses SAS to collect and analyze test information, improve the measurement fidelity of tests, and demonstrate the validity and reliability of examinations.
For ease of use, Castle users can work within the familiar Microsoft Office environment (Word, Excel or PowerPoint) as they manipulate analytical results and produce reports. Castle also uses SAS Analytics Pro for Midsize Business to access data from any source, analyze the data, and present information in business maps, charts, plots and 3-D relationship graphs.