Center for Organizational Analytics 2022-2023 Annual Report

The R Programming Data Camp was a great way to get an introduction to some coding programs and languages before I decided to declare a Business Analytics major. I am very appreciative of the hard skills that the Love School of Business teaches and facilitates and am grateful for the many opportunities they provide us. I would highly recommend any data camp to anyone interested in pursuing a Business Analytics major and someone that wants data experience!

Attending these data camps was incredibly enriching and relevant for my development as a professor and researcher, particularly in a world where data is increasingly central to decision-making. The in-depth focus on addressing bias and equity in data and algorithms during one of the camps not only heightened my awareness of these crucial issues but also equipped me with practical tools and strategies to eliminate bias in my own work, which will significantly enhance the quality and inclusivity of my data-driven decisions.

Carolina Biological Supply has worked with Elon’s Center for Organizational Analytics for over four years now. We have had students work on a multitude of projects ranging in difficulty and intensity. Survival analysis on churning customers, text analytics for website reviews, and forecasting units sold for thousands of products are some of the highlights of the work they have performed.

The main objective for our projects with students is to expand their knowledge and analytical skills working with real-world data. Teaching them the messiness and troubles of working with large scale datasets and systems allows students to have a better understanding of the applications of the skills they are taught in the classroom.

The most valuable skills and traits a student can bring to a project is attentiveness, an eagerness to learn, and never being afraid to ask a lot of questions. With those three qualities any student can learn to bring valuable insights to not just our company, but their future workspace.

Our goal at Carolina Biological has always been to focus on all aspects of education. From the teacher to the administrator to the students, we look to add value to everyone’s learning and teaching experience. Working with Elon’s Center for Organizational Analytics has been a great way for us to follow that mission while adding value to our analytics initiatives.

Acrisure Re has been privileged to pursue two projects with the Center over the last eight years, both related to achieving & maintaining real-time data access to a cohort of 12 insurance company clients. The first project handles the programming of the interfaces to the data that produces the outputs required by our internal financial and statistical models used to price and market our clients’ individual reinsurance programs, and the companion second project discovers insights and designs dashboards for returning actionable performance analytics to each client.

Our hope is that the students will gain a working knowledge of the P&C insurance business and related data & analytics pertinent to understanding a company’s risk profile. A key capstone to these projects is ultimately the confidence and capability of the students to present their work and its conclusions directly to any client. Key qualities desired in students include intellectual curiosity, courage, resilience, and determination, all to spearheading data science capabilities new to our shop, and, critically, an attitude of devotion to meeting the clients’ needs.

We are committed to our partnership with the Center for Organizational Analytics because of the energy and creativity the students bring to our business, which is refreshing to us and our clients. It is also an important opportunity for Acrisure to advance awareness of careers in our business, and to sponsor internships that provide meaningful experiences for the students to contribute to its vital mission.

Students with Elon’s Center for Organizational Analytics Center have provided analytics and a data visualization of those analytics for all our program data since we opened in 2015, and I hope students gain insight and awareness for the needs of people experiencing systemic challenges and barriers.

The qualities and attitudes that make our best partnerships are curiosity, a willingness to keep asking questions, and a hope that systems can be better for people.  We would like to continue working with Elon students because the results have been fantastic and we’d like them to be updated. We also have new analytics to pursue regarding the changing social and economic landscape in Durham, volunteer engagement, and donor development.

The Center for Organizational Analytics was monumental to my growth and development at Elon. In the field of analytics there is no better way to learn and develop new skills like working on a real project. For myself, I loved being thrown in the deep end of analytics because it allowed me to think creatively to solve problems that I have never seen before. As much as this helped me grow my technical skills, my soft skills grew even more. Not only did I gain practice and experience presenting and speaking about technical topics but this naturally built up my confidence so in internship and job interviews I knew exactly how to approach a problem or answer a question and I don’t think I would have gotten my current job as a data engineer without my experiences in the Center.

My experience with Carolina Biological was crucial in learning how to work with clients in the data field. Working alongside fellow Elon students, we solved problems and learned more about using R. Our strategies used real data to help clients understand sales and marketing on a deeper level. The Center for Organizational Analytics challenges you and yet doesn’t have the pressure of a real class!

Joining the Center for Organizational Analytics at Elon was such an invaluable experience for me. Through my involvement, I’ve been able to understand how to effectively communicate data into visualizations that tell a story. The hands-on projects allowed me to develop a strong foundation in data analysis, visualization, and interpretation.