CHICAGO, IL -- Offering the opportunity for both students and the local business community to learn valuable data mining skills, the Penn State Continuing Education program selected the SPSS Certified Data Mining Professional program (CDMP) as the latest addition to their curriculum. The Penn State program will provide training and certification based on the Cross Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM) methodology, developed in part, by SPSS BI, a division of SPSS Inc. (Nasdaq: SPSS). Featuring leading software packages from SPSS -- such as Clementine, SPSS Base and AnswerTree -- the program will offer practical hands-on training and will be available on Penn State campuses in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Erie and Harrisburg. "Statistics and data mining are at the core of the methods available in the suite of tools useful for quantitative reasoning," said James L. Rosenberger, Professor and Head of Penn State Department of Statistics. "The statistics department at Penn State welcomes the opportunity to be engaged in making these techniques available to users, and to enhance the educational level of users to help make the best use of these data mining tools." "Data mining is fast becoming a critical tool in today's competitive business world and this certification will help future business leaders make more informed decisions," said Fiona McKenna, industry marketing manager for SPSS BI. "Now, through this program, more students will have the chance to gain a professional edge. We are thrilled to be a part of Penn State's Continuing Education Program and look forward to meeting a new generation of people who use Clementine, SPSS and AnswerTree." "This dynamic partnership with SPSS BI, a world leader in knowledge and information analysis, will allow us to bring SPSS' cutting-edge curriculum to four business and government centers in Pennsylvania," said Ed Donovan, director of the Outreach Office of Statewide Programs at Penn State. "Erie and Pittsburgh have the corporate, industrial, health care and technology users; Penn State Great Valley serves the East's tremendous technology and commercial concerns, and Penn State Harrisburg will serve the government, planning and research interests of the state capital. All of these areas benefit from the predictive benefits that can only be achieved through data mining." The Penn State Data Mining Certificate program is a six-course noncredit program that explores the tools and strategies analysts need to transform data into critical management information. Exclusively using SPSS' industry-leading software, including SPSS' data mining workbench Clementine, the program will help students learn the software and the skills needed to make proactive, market-driven decisions and analyze internal customer data to forecast the future. The program provides training in data mining methodologies, data collection, preparation, visualization, and deployment and is ideal for business analysts, marketing researchers, government and urban planning professionals, law enforcement professionals, and others interested in becoming data mining analysts. For more information, visit www.outreach.psu.edu/StatewidePrograms/DataMining. The objective of the CDMP curriculum is to teach the critical skills necessary to conduct successful data mining initiatives and establish national competencies in data mining. The certification offers employers assurance that those completing course and lab work from a college or university involved in the CDMP have been trained in the necessary data mining skills established by the industry standard CRISP-DM methodology. In addition to the strong focus on a data mining methodology, participants will receive instruction and evaluation in data analysis as well as in-depth software training. Upon completion of the CRISP-DM assessment and three application/software certificates, participants will be awarded a continuing education certificate recognizing them as a "Certified Data Mining Professional." For additional information visit www.spss.com