Course Syllabus

Downloadable Syllabus: Syllabus.pdf

Indiana University Northwest (IUN)

School of Public Affairs and Environmental Affairs (SPEA)

SPEA V348 – Management Science

Fall 2016

Wednesdays 7:00 to 9:45 pm

Dunes Medical / Professional Building RM 2158

Instructor: Ebou Jallow

Phone: 219-980-6695

E-mail: ebouj@yahoo.com; ejallow@iun.edu

Office & Hours: By appointment (email me for a time).

SPEA Mission Statement: The mission of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs Public Affairs Program is to sustain a diverse, collaborative community of learning that provides professional education to develop ethical, motivated, and effective leaders and to impact our changing region, nation, and world through community engagement and research.

Course Description: Introduction to management science models and methods for policy analysis and public management. Methods include decision analysis, linear programming and simulation. Computer-based applications are included. Prior familiarization with computers is recommended, though not required.

The purpose of this course is to provide you with an understanding of the principles of management science. The intent is to provide practical solutions to common issues facing managers and decision makers in both public and private organizations. The course covers a diverse array of tools to aid in decision-making. Students will gain a unique perspective of the importance of management science through the use of current real-world examples from a public servant. Additionally, this class will help students develop critical analysis skills by encouraging you to examine issues, develop solutions, understand opposing viewpoints and communicate a position.

After successful completion of this course students should be able to:

• Demonstrate competence in using a spreadsheet for management purposes.
• Describe the methods by which management decisions are impacted by analysis.
• Apply management science techniques to model decisions and challenging problems.
• Describe fundamental management science concepts including linear programming, performance measurement, and decision analysis as well as identify examples of these concepts in practice.

Course Materials

Required Text: The Effective Public Manager, Achieving Success in Government Organizations, 5^th Edition. Steven Cohen, William Eimicke & Tanya Heikkila; Jossey-Bass, ISBN – 9781118555934

Recommended Text: Tools for Decision Making; a Practical Guide for Local Government, 2^nd Edition. David N. Ammons; CQ Press, ISBN – 9780872895973

All other required readings including academic journal articles, case study and other relevant reports will be listed on Canvas and the links will be provided for the students if they are available on the internet. Any other readings will be in pdf format and made available in the Resources tab.

This book will also be available on Library Reserves as well.

Course Requirements, Grading & Policies:

Students are expected to conduct themselves in a manner befitting those studying for a professional Bachelor’s degree. Specifically, students are expected to: 

1) Attend all classes and complete all assignments on time.

2) Make active and constructive contributions to classroom discussion.

3) Maintain the highest professional standards in the classroom.

 Grades will be based on the following:

Grade book Item	Points	% of Total Grade
Exam, Midterm (in class on 10/12)	50	25%
Exam, Final  (in class on 12/14)	50	25%
Management Practice & Theory	60	30%
Attendance/Participation	20	10%
Memo Assignment	20	10%
Total Points for Semester	200	100%

 No curves in grading are anticipated. Below is the grading scale:

Grade	+	Letter	-
A	200 – 194	193 – 186	185 – 180
B	179 – 174	173 – 166	165 – 160
C	159 – 154	153 – 146	145 – 140
D	139 – 134	133 – 126	125 – 120
F		119 or below

 Exams

There are two exams for this semester worth 50 points each. The Midterm Exam is scheduled for class on Wednesday October 12^th and covers sessions 1 – 7. The Midterm Exam includes multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions. The Final Exam is scheduled for class on Thursday December 17^th.

MPT Assignment

The purpose of the MPT Assignment is for you to articulate a “management problem” and develop insights into and solution to this problem through a series of research and reflection exercises. Further guidelines will be provided. You will be making a presentation to the class towards the end of the semester.

Memo Assignment

You will be assigned one (1) memorandum writing exercise. These represent 10% of your semester grade. The memo will help you learn the material in the textbook and provide me some feedback on your learning. Additionally, the memo will help prepare you for the exams. You are required to review and use the suggestions Dobel, Elmore, and Werner offer in their note titled, “Memoranda Writing” (this will be provided to you).

Memos will require additional reading, usually newspaper articles, or organizational research and are to be 2-3 double-spaced pages in length. Each memo is focused on a specific topic and is to be turned in by the due date and time via Canvas. The due date for the memo is listed in the syllabus and detailed instructions and rubrics are on Canvas. I will not accept memos past the due date, so start work on the memo early and make sure that you are keeping up with this requirement.

Attendance and Participation

These are worth 20 points and accounts for 10% of your grade for the semester. I will take attendance every class meeting, and your attendance grade will be calculated in the following manner: (# of classes attended/total # of classes) x 20 and rounded to the nearest half-point. You are allowed to miss 2 classes during the semester without it affecting your attendance grade. If you miss more than 2 classes for whatever reason, your attendance grade will suffer as a result. I expect you to use these 2 absences judiciously to accommodate those pressing events which are momentarily more important than class. Finally, if you come to class only to sign the attendance sheet and then leave, you will not receive credit for attending that class.

In-class participation is essential to the learning process. It demonstrates to me that you are keeping up with the reading and engaging course material. It also alerts me to problems you are having with the course material, and will enable me to approach concepts from a different perspective in order to ensure that you are learning. Finally, in-class participation allows you to learn from your peers as they engage the material.

In-class participation is not attendance although if you do not attend class regularly it will be hard to participate. In-class participation involves your active participation in the learning process and includes: raising questions about lecture material, offering comments that highlight a practical example of what is being discussed in class, volunteering an answer to one of my questions, participating in group discussions, etc. Your grade for In-Class Participation will be based on my assessment of how well you meet the above criteria.

All assignments need to be submitted on time. There will be a penalty of 1/10 grade point for every day the assignment is late. Assignments not submitted by the last due date for the course will receive zero points and will be factored in the grading. You are strongly encouraged to complete work on time and receive appropriate letter grade at the end of the semester, rather than an incomplete grade. If you receive a grade of incomplete and want to complete the course requirements later, you will not receive a grade higher than B for the course.

Detailed descriptions of assignments will be made available in due course and from the assignment links on Canvas. Due dates are detailed in the Course Schedule.

I will be using IU’s FLAG Early Alert System to provide real-time feedback on your performance in this course. Periodically throughout the session I will be entering data on factors such as your class attendance, participation and success with coursework, among other things. This information will provide feedback on how you are faring in the course and offer you suggestions on how you might be able to improve your performance. You will be able to access this information on Canvas.

Your IUN email address will be used for student communications. I will NOT send announcements or messages to a personal email account. A student may, however, forward messages automatically to a preferred personal email address from an IUN email address of the Canvas class site.

The last day to withdraw from this class on your own is October 23^rd, 2016.

Technology in the Classroom

The use of laptops, tablets or other electronic devices is permissible in the classroom. Such devices are to be used solely for work being conducted in class including accessing Canvas, taking notes etc. Texting, emailing and using social media is prohibited. All personal devices (cell phones, pagers etc.) are to be silenced during class.

IU Academic Policies

This course is governed by IU academic policies in the following areas:

Grading Guidelines

A (93-100); A- (90); B+ (87); B (83); B- (80); C+ (77); C (73); C-(70); D+ (67); D (63); D- (60); F (0).

Academic Integrity and Plagiarism

Plagiarism is also a major issue for which many university and classroom rules pply. Plagiarism is one of the worst forms of Academic Misconduct and is not tolerated at Indiana University Northwest (See the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct, p. 13, Section G, Item 3:

Plagiarism is defined as presenting someone else’s work, including the work of other students, as one’s own. Any ideas or materials taken from another source for either written or oral use must be fully acknowledged, unless the information is common knowledge. What is considered “common knowledge” may differ from course to course.

1.  A student must not adopt or reproduce ideas, opinions, theories, formulas, graphics, or pictures of another person   without acknowledgment.
2. A student must give credit to the originality of others and acknowledge indebtedness whenever:
3. directly quoting another person’s actual words, whether oral or written;
4. using another person’s ideas, opinions, or theories;
5. paraphrasing the words, ideas, opinions, or theories of others, whether oral or written;
6. borrowing facts, statistics, or illustrative material; or
7. offering materials assembled or collected by others in the form of projects or collections without acknowledgment

All students in this course are also bound by the College of Health and Human Services Code of Professional Conduct. IU Northwest CHHS Policies and Procedures can be found at:

http://www.iun.edu/chhs/policies-procedures.htm

Course Evaluations

All students in this course will have the opportunity to evaluate the course, how it was taught, prepared, structured and delivered. This will be done anonymously and the instructor will not receive the information until the semester is over and grades are submitted.

Students with Disabilities

Indiana University is committed to creating a learning environment and academic community that promotes educational opportunities for all individuals, including those with disabilities. Course directors are asked to make reasonable accommodations, upon request by the student or the university, for such disabilities. It is the responsibility of students with documented physical or learning disabilities seeking accommodation to notify their course directors and the relevant campus office that deals with such cases in a timely manner concerning the need for such accommodation. Indiana University will make reasonable accommodations for access to programs, services, and facilities as outlined by applicable state and federal laws.

Campus Support Office: Davetta Haywood, Disabilities Coordinator, Hawthorn 237, 219-980-6942 Student Support Services http://www.iun.edu/student-support/

Tentative Course Schedule*

1. 8/24: Course Introduction & Overview
2. 08/31: Mathematical Basics, Moving Averages and Sampling; Ammons, Chapters 2-4

      Bring 3 copies of 1-page problem statement for MPT exercise

 3.  09/07: Effective Public Management; Cohen et al, Chapters 1-2

      MPT Entry #1

 4.  09/14: Managing People at the Workplace; Cohen et al, Chapters 3-4 & Ammons, Chapter 24

      Memo Assignment Handed Out

 5.  09/21: Organizational Structure; Cohen et al, Chapter 5

 6.  09/28: Innovation and Change; Cohen et al, Chapter 6

      Memo Assignment Due

 7.  10/05: Privatization in Government; Cohen et al, Chapter 7 & Ammons, Chapter 20

      MPT entry #2

 8.  10/12: Midterm Exam

 9.  10/19:  ***********MPT Fieldwork************

 10.10/26: Information Management; Cohen et al, Chapter 8

      MPT entry #3

 11.11/02: Public Budgeting; Cohen et al, Chapter 9

 12.11/09: Organizational Strategy Formulation; Cohen et al, Chapter 10

      MPT Entry #4

 13.11/16: Effective Communication; Cohen et al, Chapter 11

 14.11/23: Thanksgiving Break, No Class.

 15.11/30: Student Presentations

 16.12/07: Student Presentations & Course Review and Wrap-up

  17.12/14: Final Exam & MPT Final Write-up Due

 

*This syllabus and schedule may be subject to modification as the Instructor deems necessary.