2023 Highlight Day 8: The Data Masterclass

Day 8 of our 12 days of Digital Partnership highlights of 2023!

We're delighted to feature our collaboration with the Scottish Digital Academy, bringing the Data Masterclass Course to Scottish Local Authorities!

Further to the Civil Servant Data month, local authorities highlighted the benefits of being able to access some of the assets that were available via the Scottish Digital Academy website. This content was limited to Civil Servants initially, however due to the partnership we have with the Scottish Digital Academy, they have supported us with this request and arranged access to The Data Masterclass, led by ONS and the Scottish Government.

Course information and objectives

The Data Masterclass helps senior leaders gain the skills to create and support a data culture in their organisation. It helps government and public sector leaders understand how they can use data to improve the way they make decisions, craft policy, communicate compelling narratives, and apply cutting edge data science techniques. The Data Masterclass has the keen support of Ministers and Senior Civil Service (SCS).

Lee Dunn, Head of the Scottish Digital Academy states “As our partnership with the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government evolves, we’ll seek more opportunities to share resources and access to professional learning to build digital skills and capability. The ONS Data Masterclass provides an ideal opportunity for leaders to upskill and gain valuable insight on data, and I’m delighted that we’ve been able to make this offer available.”

David Murdoch, Data Programme Manager, Argyll & Bute Council highlights “ Workforce Data Literacy & Skills is one of the 12 core themes of Argyll & Bute Council’s new data strategy and action plan. We know that embedding these skills is crucial to the success of the data strategy, if we provide additional tools analytics without enabling our staff to use them, and interpret the outputs from them, then this will undermine our progress.

So in that context we are pleased to see materials being provided centrally to help develop data literacy in the public sector. We have taken delivery of the new “Getting Started with Data” eLearning package from the Scottish Digital Academy which we will make available to all our staff through our LEON eLearning platform. In addition, we appreciate being given access to the “Data Masterclass” material hosted by FutureLearn through partnership with ONS. Providing 9 hours of very high quality content, this is a useful resource for anyone responsible for data-lead decision making and service planning. 

This course is now live and available to members of the Local Government Digital Partnership. To access this course, you need to register on the Scottish Digital Academy website using the link below.

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