How e-commerce and big data are shaping educational degrees

Before delving into how big data and e-commerce is affecting educational degrees, a clear and astute understanding of the meaning of these two terms is imperative. Big data allows effective, informed, and appropriate decisions to take place with the assistance of research done through data analysis. Humungous volumes of data are collected and analyzed via the formation of patterns and trends in various areas like business, government, medicine, and health and even in institutions or education sectors. Today many research and term papers have been written across the globe explaining the significance of big data in the way it is shaping the world of technology.
The second term is e-commerce, which is more widely popular, and hence, many would very well know about it. Yet to clarify its meaning, e-commerce is when business is virtually conducted or is on the internet. All the business activities like purchase, sales, transactions of money, inventory and supply management and others are done online via third parties (Alibaba, Amazon), mobile applications and company websites among others.

Hence, the commonality is technology. These concepts have become the need of the hour in everyone’s life today. As a result of this surge, despite these fields being relatively new, their use is extravagant. E-commerce and big data never directly intermingled with education, but because of their increased importance, there have been many amalgamations taking place. Thus, both in many ways have affected and even transformed the way an institution and the degrees function. Let us discuss few of them below.

Big Data and E-Commerce Degree Courses

Primarily, both have become separate educational degree courses. They are available as an undergraduate and mostly postgraduate course. This literally means that one can individually and in detail study these two terms as separate fields. Their addition as proper degree courses is a big leap from where they initially started off. Now, everyone has the privilege to make them their career and earn money.

Solving Education Problems and Enhancing It

Secondly, big data primarily has enabled different entities like businesses, government organizations, and others to evolve and become a better version of themselves. Big data through data analysis allows us to take the right decisions; hence, it is kind of a market research tool. One can analyze the consumer trends, behavior, inclinations, and problems to stimulate decision making in the right direction for better results.
Similarly, many educational organizations have used it to solve problems in teaching and learning by scrutinizing the data gathered from student’s accounts of social networking sites, Google searches, blog entries, etc. This allows them to understand where the institution is lacking in terms of satisfying educational needs and thus enhance that aspect. This has even proved to improve student retention rates in universities, which enables them to hold on to their graduates while allowing students, on the other hand, to remain stable and not lose focus.

Online Learning

Lastly, when talking about e-commerce in education, then distance courses/e-learning is the new in-demand education format. E-commerce is an online business, and business for institutions is degree courses and graduates. Thus e-learning is e-commerce for educational entities, as they provide their courses online. Many people today choose to study while staying in the luxury of their homes or workplaces. Thus, e-commerce has greatly changed the traditional practice of attaining education, where one would have to be physically present to gain knowledge and degrees. Today, enrolling yourself on the internet and being online is the way to acquire education. Hence e-commerce has shaped a new era of learning.
Hence, one can say that technology in the form of big data and e-commerce has been shaping educational degrees fundamentally. The introduction of individual courses, online learning programs, and the overall enhancement of institutions are live examples for the same.