Data Sourcing and Strategy

This unit teaches students how to focus big data efforts for small businesses by identifying high-value business questions, sourcing appropriate internal and external data, and making budget‑aware collection and deployment decisions. Students will learn to prioritize data, understand technology layers and roles needed to operationalize insights, and weigh costs, benefits, and new business model opportunities in preparation for data implementation and analytics in subsequent units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze a small business’s core area to identify and prioritize 3–5 unanswered business questions that can be addressed with data, providing justification tied to business goals
• Evaluate and select appropriate internal and external data sources (e.g., open-data portals, census data, sensors, telematics, cloud services), producing a prioritized data inventory with rationale for each source
• Apply cost–benefit reasoning to create a budget-aware data collection plan that specifies which data to collect or omit, recommended acquisition methods (APIs, sensors, third-party data), and estimated costs
• Demonstrate understanding of big data infrastructure and roles by mapping the four technology layers and identifying the types of data scientists and workflows required to convert selected data into machine-ready insights