Dr. Danielle Morin

During the Fall of 2018, Dr. Danielle Morin, Professor in Supply Chain and Business Technology Management in the John Molson School of Business, became the first user of Riipen at Concordia for her MBA course, and she partnered with the Toronto Police Service (TPS) to create a project for her students. “I wanted my MBA 643 students to experience a real life situation of data analytics and for many it was their first consulting experience. Overall, this is a strong learning curve but a good experience.”

The purpose of the project was to develop and design additional metrics for the Business Intelligence Analytic Unit of the TPS to support the public, policy makers and other government organisations for greater coordination to make the city of Toronto a safe place to live in. The MBA class was divided into 12 teams of 4 to 5 students. Each team worked independently to propose new metrics and benchmark based on the data provided and their review of other police departments, to improve Toronto safety.

Courtney Legault, a student in Dr. Morin’s class, said, “I definitely enjoyed this project. It was nice seeing how you can apply what you're learning in class to the real world. Also the topic was very interesting, and thus very rewarding. I would absolutely like to do more of these assignments. I found myself talking about this project to family and friends because I was so excited to work on it. I'm glad this was my first MBA class, because it got me excited for the next few years, and it set the bar high for projects going forward.”

“In general using RIIPEN was pretty seamless. The integration with the LinkedIn profile was a very nice feature, Christina Marcoux, another student in the class said. “I thought that putting the theory from class towards an actual research project using real data provided me with a learning experience that is immensely greater than anything a classroom can provide. Having milestones established within RIIPEN to help us stay on track and being able to communicate with TPS was a critical success factor in building our project. Dr. Morin was very supportive in terms of guiding us through RIIPEN and communicating with TPS. I would expect a project like this in all of my classes moving forward. The bar is set very high. I view this type of assignment a level above your typical case type assignment. Having a ‘client’ in mind while developing your project pushes you to dig deeper and deliver a better end project.”

Dr. Morin is currently using Riipen again this semester and her MBA students will work with the District of Mission in British Columbia on one of two projects: Real-time Hiring Demand Analysis or Online User Experience.