PA 557 Professor Brian Stipak
Spring 2010 e-mail: stipakb@pdx.edu
Tuesdays 4:00-6:30, URBN 240 http://web.pdx.edu/~stipakb
COURSE SYLLABUS: PA 557
Operations Research in Public Administration
This course provides an overview of operations research/management science (OR/MS) techniques, a set of formal models applicable to management problems. Instruction is at an appropriate level for students in the MPA program (and other programs) who do not have a strong mathematical background. If you do have a strong mathematical background you should take a more technical course, not PA 557. The course emphasizes understanding the basic methods and their potential applications.
A second course emphasis is the use of computer spreadsheet programs to implement OR/MS techniques. You will create a spreadsheet each week to implement the techniques we are studying. The small class size will allow us to go over in class the spreadsheets you have created. You will also undertake a course project during the last two weeks involving some additional work on one of the topics, and you will present the results of our work during the last class session.
Readings/Course Materials
Course readings and other materials are available on-line (see my PA557 help page on my web site), and I can also provide printed copies of a course packet of the course materials for students to borrow.
When I first started emphasizing in PA557 a computer spreadsheet implement of OR/MS methods, there were no textbooks available with that orientation. Now there are, including:
Cliff T. Ragsdale, Spreadsheet Modelling and Decision Analysis
Frederick S. Hillier and Mark S. Hillier, Introduction to Management Science: A Modeling and Case Studies Approach with Spreadsheets
John F. Kros, Spreadsheet Modeling for Business Decisions
Rick Hesse, Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling and Analysis
Donald R. Plane, Management Science: A Spreadsheet Approach for Windows
I have all of these books and others, and can loan them out for you to examine. No other readings other than the on-line readings are necessary, however.
Further Reference
There are many other textbooks covering OR/MS methods. The following are some of the less technical ones that you may find useful for further reference:
Textbooks Focusing on the Public Sector:
Michael White et al., Managing Public Systems: Analytic Techniques for Public Administration
Christopher McKenna, Quantitative Methods for Public Decision Making
Jack Byrd, Operations Research Models for Public Administration
Edith Stokey and Richard Zeckhauser, A Primer for Policy Analysis
Other Texts:
Jack Byrd and L. Ted Moore, Decision Models for Management
R. D. Eck, An Introduction to Quantitative Methods for Business Application
Course Requirements
This course requires some constant amount of work throughout the term in order to do the computer assignments and to understand the material: expect to devote some time to the course every week. I will announce assignments in class. Each week you will develop a new spreadsheet. At the next class meeting, you will hand in a printout of the spreadsheet, as well as a copy of the spreadsheet on disk.
Since the class size is small, part of each class session will be run in a seminar-type format, with participants presenting what they did on the course assignments. Therefore, a course requirement is to make presentations during the term on your work for the course. You may want to bring copies of a one-page handout to distribute to class members when making your presentations. Also, you may want to use the computer projection equipment in our classroom to demonstrate your computer spreadsheet.
Another course requirement is to conduct a project and to write a project paper. The typical project involves working on a spreadsheet application‑-either going further with one of the applications we worked on in class, or working on an application of one of the techniques that we did not cover in class. If anyone prefers to do a different type of project, feel free to discuss the matter with me. The final requirement for the project is to present your project to the class.
Course Listserv
I have subscribed all students enrolled in the course who have an email address in the PSU Information System to the course listserv. If you do not have an email address in the PSU information system then I did not subscribe you and you will need to subscribe yourself.
You must subscribe to the course listserv within two days after the first class meeting, if you are not already subscribed or if you want to subscribe using another email address. I will use this listserv to send messages to the class members. You can also send messages to the class members‑-for example, to solicit help and to help other students requesting help.
To subscribe to the listserv go to the information page for this listserv, which you can link to via my web site, or you can just go directly to:
"https://www.lists.pdx.edu/lists/listinfo/pa557"
Course Grades
I will assign course grades as fairly as I can based on a computerized total points score and calculated grade. I usually allow myself a maximum leeway of one increment (for example, B to B+) from the calculated grade to take into account class preparation, participation, and other special considerations.[1] The total point score is computed from scores on the following criteria using these approximate percentage weights:
50% 1. Assignments, including meeting due dates
10% 2. Presentations of work in class
30% 3. Project paper, including meeting paper due date
10% 4. Project presentation
I do not give all graduate students "A's". A "B" is also a passing grade at the graduate level. A "C" or lower means I feel the work in the course was below acceptable graduate student standards.
In practice, I find that this course usually attracts a small enrollment of highly-motivated individuals who perform very well, and consequently course grades tend to be unusually high.
The university policy on assigning incomplete ("I") grades restricts their use to special circumstances (see PSU Bulletin). Missing assignments will often result in a lower grade or an "X" grade, not an "I". If major assignments are missing a very low grade may result. If you enroll in this course but find you are not able to do all of the assignments, I recommend that you drop the course before the final drop date. If you remain in the course and do not complete all of the work, you need to see me to discuss the possibility of an "I" grade.
I consider academic dishonesty a serious offense and will penalize offenders according to university policies. Academic dishonesty includes cheating on examinations, copying or stealing other people's work, turning in work done by someone else as one's own, plagiarism, and other kinds of misrepresentation. If you know of any of these problems occurring in this class, please let me know so that I can investigate.
My Availability Outside of Class
I am available to consult with you about course matters by phone and in person outside of class hours. To see me in person, schedule a time with me. Also, feel free to stop by my office if you are in the CUPA Building; if I am in, I will see you then if I can. This combined by-appointment/flexible-office-hours approach provides a more practical way to arrange consultation than limited specific office hours, given the varied work schedules of students in our program.
Course Outline
Note: This outline contains more topics than we can cover in detail in one quarter, so we will select how we want to devote our time as we go along.
Note: The optional textbooks and books for further references listed earlier provide additional sources for studying the following topics.
1. Introduction
Decision-Making Approaches/Aids: OR/MS, Systems Analysis, Rational vs. Incremental Approaches
Context of Decision-Making: Organizational and Political Context of OR/MS in Public Agencies
OR/MS Models: Elements of OR/MS Models, Overview of OR/MS Models
Example of Development of a Formal Model: Gravity Models
Kingsley Haynes and A. Stewart Fotheringham, Gravity and Spatial Interaction Models, pp. 9‑12
Further reference: Ragsdale, Ch. 1
2. Inventory Models
Summary handout on basic inventory model
White et al., Ch. 12
and/or
Ragsdale, pp. 342-347
3. Replacement Models
Summary handout on replacement analysis
Byrd, Ch. 11
4. Queuing Models
Eck, Ch. 14
and/or
Ragsdale, Ch. 13
5. Linear Programming
McKenna, Ch. 8
and/or
Ragsdale, Ch. 2, 3
6. Integer Programming
Eck, Ch. 7
and/or
Ragsdale, Ch. 6
7. Multiattribute Evaluation
Ward Edwards and J. Robert Newman, Multiattribute Evaluation, Ch. 1
Everette Gardner, "Analyzing Subjective Decisions with a Spreadsheet"
and/or
Rasdale, pp. 765-775
Further reference: Hesse, Ch. 11
8. Forecasting
Moving Average Smoothing
Exponential Smoothing
Regression Analysis
Wall Street Journal, "Taking Stock: Here Are Simple Tools for Gauging the Health of the Market"[2]
Fund Watch, "Moving Average Trading Systems"2
Everette S. Gardner, "Short-Range Forecasting" [simple exponential smoothing]
Everette S. Gardner, "Using Exponential Smoothing" [second order exponential smoothing]
Refer to the forecasting (time series analysis) chapter in a statistics book for further discussion of moving averages and regression applications
Further reference: Ragsdale, Ch. 11; Hesse, Ch. 12
9. Decision Theory
Reference: Ragsdale, pp. 713-730; McKenna, Ch. 4
10. Decision Analysis Using Decision Trees
Reference: Ragsdale, pp. 730-764; Stokey and Zeckhauser, pp. 201-236
11. Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
Reference: Ragsdale, Ch. 14; White et al., Ch. 3; McKenna, Ch. 12
Microsoft Project software: A trial version of MS Project comes with the Ragsdale text. See Ragsdale, pp. 699-703.