INST661

Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor. With the continuing global growth in the Game, Entertainment, and virtual/augmented reality and immersive experiences industries, entertainment providers increasingly depend on data analytics to maintain a competitive edge while continuing to improve the customer experience. This course provides an overview of the Game, Entertainment, and Media (GEM) industries, discuss the relationships between the entertainment providers and the entertainment consumers, and explore the analytical techniques used to maximize the overall value to both the providers and consumers. The course will focus on the uses of analytics methods such as personalization, recommendation, clustering and segmentation, behavioral analytics, etc., will discuss core data management and data architecture concerns, and examine how big data infrastructure can support scalability as data volumes grow and as streaming speeds accelerate. In addition we review socio-technical aspects of entertainment, especially in the areas of cyberpsychology, social networks, and information policy concerns such as privacy protection, fraud, equity, and national security concerns.