Like much else, the Spring MSBA Showcase could not be convened IRL to protect public health. Instead, the 2020 cohort pivoted to online in parallel with instruction at UM.
See the 2020 MSBA Showcase online: www.umontanamsba.com

Name: Aspen Runkel  | Title: A New Angle on Analytics

Synopsis: The growing popularity of podcasts has given Justin Angle, Associate Professor of Marketing and host of A New Angle podcast, the opportunity to share conversations with cool people doing awesome things. This project strives to analyze the podcast’s historical data from its humble beginnings in January 2018 and optimize its analytics for analysis and decision making for years to come.

Name: Michael Schwartz | Title: Scraping for Jobs: An Exploration in Data Engineering & Dashboarding

Synopsis: Whether a first-time job seeker or someone looking to re-skill and change careers, the goal of this project is to scrape job listings in the data (science, engineering, analytics) space to better understand the skills and technological proficiencies that companies are looking for in ideal candidates.

Name: Sarah Thompson | Title: Exploring Peak Shaving for the University of Montana’s Energy Demand

Synopsis: This project seeks to identify time intervals where The University of Montana’s energy demand is larger than 5500W by collecting, cleaning, and displaying power data in near real-time. By providing UM Facilities with visibility into the university’s current power usage, they can utilize the tools at their disposal to reduce the peak energy demand interval and ultimately save money.

Name: Austin Bankston  | Title: Snapshot into the Prevalence of Youth Vaping and Tobacco Use

Synopsis: To best prepare for the future of healthcare, it is important to understand and predict youth health trends. This data set specifically targets the demographics of youth using tobacco and vaping. Outcomes of this data set will assist in targeting and creating marketing for prevention of use in youth.

Name: Jordan McNea | Title: Social Media Engagement for 2020 Presidential Candidates

Synopsis: Supporters of the various candidates for president use social media in wildly different ways. This project aims to create data pipelines to capture months of Reddit comments and Twitter mentions of the candidates, analyze the data using various natural language processing (NLP) techniques, and visualize the data with interactive dashboards.

Name: Ross Stokes | Title: The Yellowstone River, How Much?

Synopsis: Various time series analysis techniques were used to predict the flows of the Yellowstone River during Spring runoff. These predictions were calculated using Snotel and weather data. It is important for river guides and fishing guides to have a good idea of what the flows are going to be during the runoff season while booking trips in advance. Many guides have had to cancel bookings due to unfavorable river conditions. If guides have this information, they will be able to recommend other alternatives if the conditions at the Yellowstone River are not desirable.

Name: Alistair Bernhard |Title: Stock Price Risk Analysis and Forecast

Synopsis: Many Americans do not own a stock or have not even thought about creating a financial portfolio. This manual will guide a user to better understand the stock market, how to reduce the risk of their portfolios, and forecast closing stock prices a couple days into the future.

Name: Taylor Toepke |Title: Analysis of Recidivism for Montana Department of Corrections

Synopsis: Montana Correctional Enterprises, a division of DOC, provides vocational training to current inmates in the Montana prison system. This project aims to analyze the inmates that make their way through the system to better understand the success of MCE, recidivism, and the factors that contribute to an inmate’s return.