Brandeis GPS Blog Articles in August, 2018

Month: August 2018

The Evolution of Technology for Financial Services

Woman in front of building The increasing use of computational power, digital assets, and big data has ushered in a new era of innovation in the industry. Financial Technology, or FinTech, has advanced diverse areas such as payments, digital ledgers, foreign exchange, lending, insurance, investment advice, and wealth management. To understand these changes, we need to understand the application of technology and the economic value of these changes to the financial services industry as well as the agents catalyzing these changes.

During our Fall 2 session starting in October, Brandeis GPS will be offering FinTech: The Evolution of Technology for Financial Services. The 10-week, fully online course will explore FinTech as a solution to challenges facing an inter-connected global marketplace. It will address the evolution of the financial industry landscape, the challenges and opportunities this new era presents, and the drivers behind the change.

Throughout the course, students will debate FinTech innovation and entrepreneurship in the financial services sector through a combination of online discussions, case studies, group projects and guest bloggers. They will analyze well-known FinTech companies and discuss value propositions, competition, business models, and technology. They will examine recent trends and explore areas that are ripe for disruption in the industry.

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

Explain the evolution of financial technology and its current relationship to the horizontal integration of accessibility to technology, decrease in cost in computing, and access to data
Discern the relationship between the advancements in financial technology and the benefits and concerns that these bring to the individual and to institutions
Compare current trends in financial technology to emerging trends and assess the opportunities and risks
Apply theories of artificial intelligence or machine learning to decision making and risk mitigation and discuss their merits and drawbacks
Develop a proposal that determines a currently unidentified need that can be empowered or met through financial technology

At Brandeis GPS, you can take up to two courses before enrolling in one of our 12 Master’s degree programs. If you’re interested in exploring the MS in Digital Innovation for FinTech, or would like to explore technology for FinTech as part of your own professional development, contact the GPS office for more information or to request a syllabus: 781-736-8787, gps@brandeis.edu, or submit your information.

The influence of laws and ethics on digital learning

August 23, 2018 / kaplane / 0 Comments

Woman and man looking at computer Digital learning is becoming increasingly common in classrooms of all ages. As K-12 and higher ed classrooms explore innovative online learning technologies and techniques, the modern workplace can also adapt instructional content to online and mobile platforms for learning and development. According to eLogic Learning, in 2015 the Learning Management System market was worth somewhere around $165 billion. At a 5% increase every year, that puts it on track to hit almost $240 billion by 2023.

Instructional designers work to use design thinking, evidence-based science, and pedagogical principles to develop adaptive and accessible digital learning experiences. Nowadays, that includes navigating the evolving legal landscape and ethical code that goes along with it.

Brandeis GPS will be offering Digital Ethics & The Legal Landscape of Instructional Design during our 10-week long Fall 2 session, starting in October. The fully online course will explore the legal issues arising from intellectual property, copyright law (including the fair use exception), the TEACH Act, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It will also look at federal laws related to learners with disabilities and help students to develop strategies to ensure accessibility for these online learners.

During the course, students will also examine how to best protect online learner privacy rights of education records in compliance with the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Students will apply these laws to realistic scenarios that may arise in the design setting and develop best practices to minimize risk of liability.

After examining the laws in place, students will explore the ethical challenges that arise in practice, including the creation of instructional materials that support a diverse learner audience, implications of the “digital divide,” and conflicts of interest stemming from opportunities for personal gain outside of the employment relationship. They will compare and contrast legal standards with ethical values with respect to the development and implementation of online instructional materials and use their knowledge to design their own ethical code relevant to their professional goals.

At Brandeis GPS, you can take up to two courses before enrolling in one of our 12 online Master’s degree programs. If you’re interested in exploring the MS in Instructional Design and Technology or would like to learn more about digital ethics as part of your own professional development, contact the GPS office for more information or to request a syllabus: 781-736-8787, gps@brandeis.edu, or submit your information.

Top 10 data scientist Charles Givre becomes new Strategic Analytics program chair

August 16, 2018 / kaplane / 0 Comments

Headshot of Charles Givre Brandeis GPS is delighted to announce the appointment of Charles Givre, MA, CISSP, as the new chair of our online MS in Strategic Analytics program.

In his role as chair, Charles ensures high course quality and provides the industry insights that keep the program’s goals and outcomes current and relevant. He also recruits and mentors faculty, and advises students on program and course requirements.

Charles is a Vice President and Lead Data Scientist at Deutsche Bank in the Chief Security Office (CSO), where he leads an international team of data scientists working on security challenges. He has a passion for solving difficult problems with data and using data in unique ways to drive business decisions. In fact, Charles was recently named as one of the Top 10 Data Scientists you need to know right now by Enterprise Management 360.

With over 10 years of experience in the intelligence community in various organizations, Charles has a lot to share with the data science community. Charles regularly presents classes and presentations at international conferences including Strata, BlackHat and the Open Data Science Conference. His research interests include adversarial machine learning as well as improving analytic efficiency. He is a committer to the Apache Drill project and has co-authored a book on the topic.

Charles received undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Music from the University of Arizona before getting his MA from Brandeis University. Then, he went on to work at the CIA and Booz Allen Hamilton before starting in his role at Deutsche Bank.

Learn more about the part-time, online Master’s of Science in Strategic Analytics here.

Faces of GPS is an occasional series that profiles Brandeis University Graduate Professional Studies students, faculty and staff. Find more Faces of GPS stories here.

How to keep the peace and move projects forward in the workplace

August 14, 2018 / kaplane / 0 Comments

Conflicts of interest are common, both in professional environments and daily life. It is important to know how to handle them, in order to get along with and move forward with the people around you – especially as a project or program manager. The ability to accommodate others is a vital skill that all successful business professionals should possess.

Resolving conflicts has become increasingly complex with an increase in virtual teams and the globalization of project management. Virtual teams must approach conflict resolution differently as cultural differences, interests, and values can all influence negotiation strategy and tactics.

Conflict Resolution Word Cloud Brandeis GPS will be offering Negotiating and Conflict Resolution during our Fall 2 session, starting in October. The fully online, 10-week course will provide students with a framework to understand the basis of conflict, select an appropriate conflict resolution strategy, and employ tactics that optimize results for both individuals and organizations. During the course, students will explore different characteristics of negotiation including the two fundamental strategies, frames of reference, value creation, value claiming, and the impact of both tangible and intangible factors on the negotiation process.

The course will highlight the challenges that virtual teams present at each stage of the conflict resolution process. Negotiation is a soft skill that benefits from practice of the concepts in addition to learning the theory, so extensive role play of virtual group negotiations are incorporated into the course.

By the end of the course, students will have the skills to develop a systematic plan to negotiate with colleagues, bosses, clients, other stakeholders, and external groups of all kinds. They will be able to:

Analyze the characteristics of a negotiation situation and develop strategies for conflict management
Execute the fundamental strategies of distributive bargaining
Analyze different positions taken during a negotiation and handle hardball tactics
Prepare for communications in negotiations and analyze the opponent’s communication tactics
Identify frames in negotiation, managing emotions and perspectives, and identifying cognitive bias
Apply power to strengthen negotiation and manage influence during a negotiation process
Evaluate ethical and unethical tactics
Execute culturally responsive negotiation strategies

At Brandeis GPS, you can take up to two courses before enrolling in one of our 12 online Master’s degree programs. If you’re interested in exploring the MS in Project and Program Management, or would like to learn more about negotiations and conflict resolution as part of your own professional development, contact the GPS office for more information or to request a syllabus: 781-736-8787, gps@brandeis.edu, or submit your information.

Protecting privacy: securing your organization from cyber-crime

August 9, 2018 / kaplane / 0 Comments

Woman standing in front of team As technology continues to change the way we experience sectors of our daily life, it’s not surprising that cyber-security risk and vulnerabilities are also on the rise. From popular fitness tracking apps to university data systems, there have been dozens of high profile security breaches in the first half of 2018 alone.

According to Trustwave, $600 billion is lost to cyber-crime globally every year. In 2016, 53% percent of IT security professionals felt more pressured to secure their organizations than in 2015, demonstrating a growing need for information security management of businesses, government agencies, and other enterprises. Now more than ever, companies need leaders who can establish teams, processes and policies to secure their data.

Brandeis GPS offers a course in Information Security Management that explores security concepts, infrastructures, standards, protocols, and best practices. that are necessary for today’s information security professionals. The course focuses on management and governance, assessing and communicating risk, law (compliance) and ethics, policies, planning (strategy and operations), contingency planning (disaster recovery and incident response), and testing. These concepts are applied and discussed in the context of common enterprise scenarios.

Throughout the course, students acquire an understanding of the fundamentals of information assurance solutions and learn to establish a comprehensive security strategy and execution plan. By the end of the session, students will be able to apply the concepts, principles, and vocabulary of IT and information security within the context of their own organizations.

Information Security Management is a fully online, 10-week course that will next run in October 2018.

At Brandeis GPS, you can take up to two courses before enrolling in one of our 12 online Master’s degree programs. If you’re interested in exploring the MS in Information Security Leadership, or would like to learn more about information security management as part of your own professional development, contact the GPS office for more information or to request a syllabus: 781-736-8787, gps@brandeis.edu, or submit your information.

How has GDPR changed the world?

August 7, 2018 / kaplane / 0 Comments

On May 25, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect to set a new standard for the protection of European individual’s rights over their personal identity data.

If you are in Technology or Security in the US, you are aware of GDPR, and, unless you have been living under a rock, you have assessed whether or not your organization needs to comply. Now, just because this regulation is new, that is to say, just because no one has gone to jail or received a hefty fine does not mean that regulators do not know what they are doing or are lax in their enforcement.

So, how has GDPR changed the world? This new regulation replaces the outdated 1995 EU data regulation, Directive 95/46/EC, which, while sound, was written before wide-scale adoption of the Internet. Simply put, the GDPR is a directive to place the control of a person’s information in the hands of the individual. It is specific to EU citizens and applies to all those classified as either ‘controllers’ or ‘processors’ of the personal information for EU citizens. This means, yes, the GDPR does apply to you if you are a US business, without a physical presence located in the EU, but you do offer goods/services to citizens of the EU.

One of the best sources for all things GDPR is the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The rights afforded individuals under GDPR are comprehensive, such as the right to be erased, the right to restrict data processing, or to stop direct marketing. The US does not have a comparable directive, so you will need to involve your legal team to determine your need to comply. The bottom line is that the regulation is all about accountability, transparency, control and reporting.

What do you do if you’re not sure if your organization needs to comply? If you think you need to, it will take some time, so start immediately. You want to acknowledge your requirements and get a plan in place to move toward compliance. How do you do that? You can conduct a self-assessment with an ICO tool, which can be found here. The tool will walk you through and provide a score by topic area. If you missed the deadline, the most important thing you can do is act. Get your legal team together and go.

Also, put protection in place to limit your interaction with EU citizens. This can be simple and straightforward. I found an example in the form of the LA Times website.

I used a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to appear to be an Internet user coming to the LA Times website from London. When I arrived at the website, I was instructed that I would be unable to view the web content.

I cannot speak to the LA Times compliance plans for GDPR nor have I contacted them, but they have put measures in place to detect the IP address of viewers and filter those from the EU. Obviously, LA Times needs a more comprehensive solution so as not to miss a market of approximately 518 million people, but this is a great short-term solution in that it protects LA Times and EU citizens’ rights to control the potential collection and processing of their personal data.

So, what have the results been? The online news site DataBreachToday listed the UK privacy regulator as seeing a rise in breach reporting in June of 1,750 instances, up from just 400 reported in April. While this sounds high, a more than 400% rise in one month is an indication of compliance management. This is the EU; this is principles-based regulation which is focused on outcomes. Saying you do not comply, measuring, and monitoring your progress towards compliance are important. It means you are taking accountable steps to control and monitor how you don’t comply.

US organizations may not comply, but you need to know if you must and then start working toward it. You had two years to comply. Take the first step and the rest will follow.

Joseph (Joe) Dalessandro is the program chair of the Information Security Leadership program at Brandeis University Graduate Professional Studies, and the Head of Security & Technology Audit and Audit Data Analytics, Australian Unity.

The ABCs of SEM

August 2, 2018 / kaplane / 0 Comments

According to Internet Live Stats, Google currently processes over 3.5 billion searches per day, which amounts to 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide. Digital marketers know that web users arriving on Google’s search engine results page are looking for specific information based on the keywords they searched for. Search engine marketing (SEM) is a tactic marketers can use to get their products or services in front of these users as searches are happening in real-time.

The idea behind SEM (also known as paid search, or pay-per-click marketing) is to anticipate the types of keywords a target market is going to search for, and strategically optimize a paid search budget to bid on those keywords. By also including the keywords in Google ads and on landing pages, marketers can earn one of Google’s top ad spots on the search engine results page, placing an ad among users who have already expressed an interest in searching for a product or service.

For professionals looking to build their search engine marketing skills, Brandeis GPS will be offering Principles of Search Engine Marketing during our October 2018 session. The fully online, 10-week course will explore ad creation, keyword expansion, landing page optimization, monitoring, bid management, and analysis. It will also explore search engine optimization, and how that strategy can enhance and complement paid search campaigns.

Students will learn the back-end technology behind search engines and how people use search engines to find information, and will then explore ways to position relevant content within those searches so that their products or services become part of the searcher’s decision process. Students learn about and evaluate SEM methods including content creation, keyword strategies, website programming, pay-per-click advertising, digital marketing optimization, and social media. As part of the course, students use Simbound, a digital marketing simulation, to create their own SEM campaign including forming objectives, strategy, budget allocation, tactics, and measurements to monitor progress.

At Brandeis GPS, you can take up to two courses before enrolling in one of our 12 Master’s degree programs. If you’re interested in exploring the MS in Digital Marketing and Design, or would like to explore paid search as part of your own professional development, contact the GPS office for more information or to request a syllabus: 781-736-8787, gps@brandeis.edu, or submit your information.