Case Study: Smith School of Business at Queen's University achieves hands-on automated machine learning in the classroom with DataRobot

Smith School of Business at Queen's University - Customer Case Study

Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, led in this effort by Anton Ovchinnikov, needed a way to teach predictive modeling and machine learning to managers-in-training who are “consumers of analytics” while preserving an open-source engineering philosophy. The challenge was to give students a solid grounding in coding and model-building before exposing them to automated solutions—so they could understand what’s happening under the hood—while also demonstrating the time‑saving potential of a commercial platform like DataRobot’s automated machine learning (DataRobot Enterprise AI).

DataRobot supported the curriculum through guest lectures and hands‑on demos (led by John Boersma) using a retention‑modeling case; the platform automated much of the model-building work students had been doing manually, letting them focus on feature engineering, data understanding and managerial insight. Students were given limited access to the DataRobot platform, many were “impressed” by the results, and a number went on to initiate commercial evaluations at their organizations—demonstrating faster model development and greater emphasis on strategic use of ML thanks to DataRobot.

Smith School of Business at Queen's University

Anton Ovchinnikov

Distinguished Professor of Management Analytics