Results show that academics have an opportunity to help meet the growing need by bringing foundational data skills across disciplines and levels of education

Tableau, the world’s leading analytics platform, announced new findings from a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on Tableau’s behalf, The Great Data Literacy Gap: Demand For Data Skills Exceeds Supply, to help better understand the gap and what can be done to close it.

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While recruiters rated data literacy skills as most important, only 48% of academic institutions actually have data literacy skills initiatives in place. The Forrester study found that “While 96% of education decision-makers say they consider which skills recruiters value when designing curriculum, only 39% say they have a strong understanding of what recruiters are looking for today.” Academics ranked data skills second to last in order of how successful institutions are in imparting workplace skills that they feel are effectively preparing students for the workforce.

However, when Forrester surveyed human resource recruiters and academics to assess the skills needed in the workforce versus what was actually being taught in the classroom, they found that data skills have risen in importance over the past five years and the trend isn’t likely to stop soon. Recruiters ranked data literacy as the skill in the highest demand for entry-level candidates today. In addition, they said it is the skill that has grown the most in-demand over the last five years and will increase the most in importance over the next five years.

Everyone from human resources and marketing to sales and customer support will need to have at least a solid foundation in data literacy in order to succeed in the modern workforce. Which is why it is important now more than ever, that universities help bridge this gap and incorporate data literacy training in all academic departments and across disciplines.

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Since 2011, Tableau has enabled more than 1.7 million students and instructors with critical data skills via the Tableau Academic Program. The program is designed to help close this data literacy gap by empowering students and teachers with free software, learning resources and programs that help build these important skills. The Tableau Academic Program offers:

• Tableau for Teaching, which enables instructors to bring data into the classroom with free software for them and their students, curriculum for two Data Literacy Courses and full access to Tableau eLearning for remote or self-paced learning from beginning to advanced. The program also gives teachers access to a Tableau Online site so that they can easily collaborate with their students.
• Instructors at an accredited institution can request a free Tableau for Teaching license for instructional use or noncommercial academic research.

• Tableau for Students offers 1 year of free access to Tableau and elearning for students who are interested in building data skills outside of the classroom
• Data Literacy for All offers more than five hours of foundational data skills content curriculum and is available for free to everyone.

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