Statewide initiatives and the COVID-19 pandemic have caused us to re-examine how we deliver and evaluate students in our courses. In this paper, we discuss our experiences using grading contracts, which are commonly used in writing programs but virtually unknown in fields like operations research. We found strong undergraduate student support for the contract and no statistically significant differences in final course grades. We urge our fellow educators to consider alternatives to the traditional grading schemes that strongly favor in-class exams in evaluating students.
{"title":"Adventures with Grading Contracts in Operations Classes: A Preliminary Investigation","authors":"Stewart Liu, Theresa M. Roeder, Susan C. Cholette","doi":"10.1287/ited.2023.0049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0049","url":null,"abstract":"Statewide initiatives and the COVID-19 pandemic have caused us to re-examine how we deliver and evaluate students in our courses. In this paper, we discuss our experiences using grading contracts, which are commonly used in writing programs but virtually unknown in fields like operations research. We found strong undergraduate student support for the contract and no statistically significant differences in final course grades. We urge our fellow educators to consider alternatives to the traditional grading schemes that strongly favor in-class exams in evaluating students.","PeriodicalId":37137,"journal":{"name":"INFORMS Transactions on Education","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142179242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-14DOI: 10.1287/ited.2023.0037ca
Amy David
This case focuses on forecasting a number of grocery items from the perspective of a demand planner who notices that the items have irregular patterns in the seasonality of their historical sales. It introduces students to the need for diverse cultural knowledge in forecasting certain consumer products and provides instructors with a starting point for discussing the business case for diversity and the value of diverse teams in a supply chain management context. This case is recommended for use in an undergraduate-level course in supply chain management, operations management, or business analytics. Learning goals are for students to identify irregular patterns in historical sales data and determine their root causes, evaluate a statistical forecast created without human intervention, and explain how culturally diverse teams can be valuable in a forecasting process.Supplemental Material: The Teaching Note and grocery forecasting Excel spreadsheet are available at https://www.informs.org/Publications/Subscribe/Access-Restricted-Materials .
{"title":"Case Article–Forecasting at FoodMart: A Case on Cultural Diversity in Supply Chain Management","authors":"Amy David","doi":"10.1287/ited.2023.0037ca","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0037ca","url":null,"abstract":"This case focuses on forecasting a number of grocery items from the perspective of a demand planner who notices that the items have irregular patterns in the seasonality of their historical sales. It introduces students to the need for diverse cultural knowledge in forecasting certain consumer products and provides instructors with a starting point for discussing the business case for diversity and the value of diverse teams in a supply chain management context. This case is recommended for use in an undergraduate-level course in supply chain management, operations management, or business analytics. Learning goals are for students to identify irregular patterns in historical sales data and determine their root causes, evaluate a statistical forecast created without human intervention, and explain how culturally diverse teams can be valuable in a forecasting process.Supplemental Material: The Teaching Note and grocery forecasting Excel spreadsheet are available at https://www.informs.org/Publications/Subscribe/Access-Restricted-Materials .","PeriodicalId":37137,"journal":{"name":"INFORMS Transactions on Education","volume":"109 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142179241","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-24DOI: 10.1287/ited.2023.0044ca
Wei Wu, Rashmi Sharma, Saurabh Bansal
The case study has two primary objectives: incorporating fairness considerations in managerial decision making and introducing task allocation using an optimization model. The case focuses on a call center that faces the issue of daily task allocation. The current self-selection-based allocation protocol has created friction among employees. To enable employee satisfaction and boost team morale, the call center needs to develop an allocation model that is perceived to be fair by employees. The case tends to elicit enthusiastic participation from students, especially on the theme of workplace fairness and the role of gender and individual constraints on employees’ ability to excel at the workplace. Overall, students believed the case was challenging and that it provided them skills to combine (i) optimization modeling and (ii) qualitative considerations for workplace fairness that they studied in management and leadership courses.Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0044ca .
{"title":"Case Article—Three Mountain Communications: Fairness Considerations for Workplace Task Allocation","authors":"Wei Wu, Rashmi Sharma, Saurabh Bansal","doi":"10.1287/ited.2023.0044ca","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0044ca","url":null,"abstract":"The case study has two primary objectives: incorporating fairness considerations in managerial decision making and introducing task allocation using an optimization model. The case focuses on a call center that faces the issue of daily task allocation. The current self-selection-based allocation protocol has created friction among employees. To enable employee satisfaction and boost team morale, the call center needs to develop an allocation model that is perceived to be fair by employees. The case tends to elicit enthusiastic participation from students, especially on the theme of workplace fairness and the role of gender and individual constraints on employees’ ability to excel at the workplace. Overall, students believed the case was challenging and that it provided them skills to combine (i) optimization modeling and (ii) qualitative considerations for workplace fairness that they studied in management and leadership courses.Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0044ca .","PeriodicalId":37137,"journal":{"name":"INFORMS Transactions on Education","volume":"60 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141771994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-05DOI: 10.1287/ited.2023.0026cs
M. Jat, Jason Monette, Parminder Singh Kang
{"title":"Case—Budding with ERP: Information and Operations Management Challenges in a Nascent Industry","authors":"M. Jat, Jason Monette, Parminder Singh Kang","doi":"10.1287/ited.2023.0026cs","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0026cs","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37137,"journal":{"name":"INFORMS Transactions on Education","volume":"307 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141386565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-05DOI: 10.1287/ited.2023.0026ca
M. Jat, Jason Monette, Parminder Singh Kang
The role of analytics in operations and supply chain management (OSCM) has gained significant importance due to the decision-making complexities in the current business environment. The effectiveness of most analytical approaches, in turn, relies on access to timely and accurate data and information. Hence, it is essential for OSCM students to understand the underlying processes and dynamics of information management, for which enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have become a standard. This case study can be a useful resource for introducing the critical interface between OSCM and information systems. The case study aims to facilitate learning on (1) the limitations of a rudimentary and disconnected information system, (2) the benefits and challenges of ERP implementation, and (3) the important steps to ensure a successful implementation of an ERP system. It provides an interesting context of a fast-growing agribusiness producing regulated products in Canada. The case study has been used in OSCM and management information systems (MIS) courses in two Canadian public Universities. Funding: This work was supported by Mitacs [Grants IT28747 and IT32722]. Supplemental Material: The Teaching Note and data files are available at https://www.informs.org/Publications/Subscribe/Access-Restricted-Materials .
{"title":"Case Article—Budding with ERP: Information and Operations Management Challenges in a Nascent Industry","authors":"M. Jat, Jason Monette, Parminder Singh Kang","doi":"10.1287/ited.2023.0026ca","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0026ca","url":null,"abstract":"The role of analytics in operations and supply chain management (OSCM) has gained significant importance due to the decision-making complexities in the current business environment. The effectiveness of most analytical approaches, in turn, relies on access to timely and accurate data and information. Hence, it is essential for OSCM students to understand the underlying processes and dynamics of information management, for which enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have become a standard. This case study can be a useful resource for introducing the critical interface between OSCM and information systems. The case study aims to facilitate learning on (1) the limitations of a rudimentary and disconnected information system, (2) the benefits and challenges of ERP implementation, and (3) the important steps to ensure a successful implementation of an ERP system. It provides an interesting context of a fast-growing agribusiness producing regulated products in Canada. The case study has been used in OSCM and management information systems (MIS) courses in two Canadian public Universities. Funding: This work was supported by Mitacs [Grants IT28747 and IT32722]. Supplemental Material: The Teaching Note and data files are available at https://www.informs.org/Publications/Subscribe/Access-Restricted-Materials .","PeriodicalId":37137,"journal":{"name":"INFORMS Transactions on Education","volume":"51 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141383981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This case centers around the dilemma faced by the female owner of a balloon decoration business: whether to outsource transportation of balloon arrangements to third-party providers or handle the transportation of some orders in house. The case illustrates a path to answering the strategic business question through solving a sequence of vehicle routing problems (VRPs) of increasing complexity. The focus of the case is not only on solving VRPs, but also on teaching a practical framework for (1) framing a business problem as a prescriptive analytics problem; (2) researching appropriate concepts, prior publications, and tools; (3) setting up an optimization problem formulation, estimating the necessary inputs, and obtaining a solution; (4) deciding on the appropriate level of formulation complexity needed; and (5) mapping the results from the models to a response to the original business question. Realistic data and Excel models and are provided. The case is appropriate for use in courses in optimization, operations research, and business analytics at either the advanced undergraduate or master’s/MBA level.Supplemental Material: The Teaching Note and supplemental data are available at https://www.informs.org/Publications/Subscribe/Access-Restricted-Materials .
{"title":"Case Article—Prescriptive Analytics for Entrepreneurial Growth: Data-Driven Strategic Decision Making at iParty Bangkok Co., Ltd.","authors":"Dong (Michelle) Li, Dessislava Pachamanova, Phattharanan Siricharoensang","doi":"10.1287/ited.2023.0028ca","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0028ca","url":null,"abstract":"This case centers around the dilemma faced by the female owner of a balloon decoration business: whether to outsource transportation of balloon arrangements to third-party providers or handle the transportation of some orders in house. The case illustrates a path to answering the strategic business question through solving a sequence of vehicle routing problems (VRPs) of increasing complexity. The focus of the case is not only on solving VRPs, but also on teaching a practical framework for (1) framing a business problem as a prescriptive analytics problem; (2) researching appropriate concepts, prior publications, and tools; (3) setting up an optimization problem formulation, estimating the necessary inputs, and obtaining a solution; (4) deciding on the appropriate level of formulation complexity needed; and (5) mapping the results from the models to a response to the original business question. Realistic data and Excel models and are provided. The case is appropriate for use in courses in optimization, operations research, and business analytics at either the advanced undergraduate or master’s/MBA level.Supplemental Material: The Teaching Note and supplemental data are available at https://www.informs.org/Publications/Subscribe/Access-Restricted-Materials .","PeriodicalId":37137,"journal":{"name":"INFORMS Transactions on Education","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140592117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-01DOI: 10.1287/ited.2023.0028cs
Dong (Michelle) Li, D. Pachamanova, Phattharanan Siricharoensang
{"title":"Case—Prescriptive Analytics for Entrepreneurial Growth: Data-Driven Strategic Decision Making at iParty Bangkok Co., Ltd.","authors":"Dong (Michelle) Li, D. Pachamanova, Phattharanan Siricharoensang","doi":"10.1287/ited.2023.0028cs","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0028cs","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37137,"journal":{"name":"INFORMS Transactions on Education","volume":"37 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140789753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A staple of many spreadsheet-based management science courses is the use of Excel for activities such as model building, sensitivity analysis, goal seeking, and Monte-Carlo simulation. What might those things look like if carried out using Python? We describe a teaching module in which Python is used to do typical Excel-based modeling and data-wrangling tasks. In addition, students are exposed to basic software engineering principles, including project folder structures, version control, object-oriented programming, and other more advanced Python skills, creating deployable packages and documentation. The module is supported with Jupyter notebooks, Python scripts, course web pages that include numerous screencasts, and a few GitHub repositories. All of the supporting materials are permissively licensed and freely accessible.Supplemental Material: The supplemental files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0047 .
{"title":"Spreadsheet Modeling and Wrangling with Python","authors":"Mark W. Isken","doi":"10.1287/ited.2023.0047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0047","url":null,"abstract":"A staple of many spreadsheet-based management science courses is the use of Excel for activities such as model building, sensitivity analysis, goal seeking, and Monte-Carlo simulation. What might those things look like if carried out using Python? We describe a teaching module in which Python is used to do typical Excel-based modeling and data-wrangling tasks. In addition, students are exposed to basic software engineering principles, including project folder structures, version control, object-oriented programming, and other more advanced Python skills, creating deployable packages and documentation. The module is supported with Jupyter notebooks, Python scripts, course web pages that include numerous screencasts, and a few GitHub repositories. All of the supporting materials are permissively licensed and freely accessible.Supplemental Material: The supplemental files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2023.0047 .","PeriodicalId":37137,"journal":{"name":"INFORMS Transactions on Education","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140154327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Multiple studies call for engineering education to integrate social justice into classroom instruction. Yet, there is uncertainty regarding whether integrating these social topics into engineering curriculum will support or detract from the learning of technical concepts. This study focuses on evaluating how reframing technical assessments to include social justice concepts impacts student learning and investigates how well students integrate social justice into engineering decision making. Using a within-subject design, in which students were exposed to both conditions (questions with and without social justice context), we evaluate how social justice framing impacts overall student learning of technical topics. Social justice prompts are added to homework questions, and we assess students’ demonstration of knowledge of original technical content of the course, as well as their ability to consider social justice implications of engineering design. In the earlier homework assignment, the experimental group showed a significant decrease in learning when technical concepts were framed to include social justice. As the students became more familiar with social justice considerations, their learning of technical concepts became comparable to that of students who did not have the social justice components in their assignment. Their evaluation of the social implications of technical decisions also improved.History: This paper has been accepted for the INFORMS Transactions on Education Special Issue on DEI in ORMS Classrooms.Funding: This work was supported by the Carnegie Mellon University’s Wimmer Faculty Fellowship and the National Science Foundation [Grant 2053856]. D. Nock also acknowledges support from the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, where she is an energy fellow.Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2022.0030 .
多项研究呼吁工程学教育将社会公正纳入课堂教学。然而，将这些社会主题融入工程学课程是否会支持或减弱技术概念的学习，还存在不确定性。本研究重点评估了重新构建技术评估以纳入社会公正概念对学生学习的影响，并调查了学生将社会公正融入工程决策的程度。我们采用主体内设计，让学生在两种条件下（有社会公正背景的问题和没有社会公正背景的问题）进行学习，评估社会公正框架如何影响学生对技术主题的整体学习。我们在家庭作业问题中添加了社会公正提示，并评估学生对课程中原有技术内容的了解程度，以及他们考虑工程设计对社会公正影响的能力。在较早的家庭作业中，当技术概念被纳入社会公正时，实验组的学习效果明显下降。随着学生们越来越熟悉社会公正方面的考虑，他们对技术概念的学习与作业中没有社会公正内容的学生不相上下。他们对技术决策的社会影响的评估也有所提高：本论文已被 INFORMS Transactions on Education Special Issue on DEI in ORMS Classrooms 收录：这项工作得到了卡内基梅隆大学维默教员奖学金和美国国家科学基金会[Grant 2053856]的支持。D. 诺克还感谢威尔顿-斯科特能源创新研究所（Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation）的支持，她是该研究所的能源研究员：在线附录请访问 https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2022.0030 。
{"title":"Investigating How Social Justice Framing for Assessments Impacts Technical Learning","authors":"Destenie Nock, Laura Pottmeyer, Alexana Cranmer","doi":"10.1287/ited.2022.0030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2022.0030","url":null,"abstract":"Multiple studies call for engineering education to integrate social justice into classroom instruction. Yet, there is uncertainty regarding whether integrating these social topics into engineering curriculum will support or detract from the learning of technical concepts. This study focuses on evaluating how reframing technical assessments to include social justice concepts impacts student learning and investigates how well students integrate social justice into engineering decision making. Using a within-subject design, in which students were exposed to both conditions (questions with and without social justice context), we evaluate how social justice framing impacts overall student learning of technical topics. Social justice prompts are added to homework questions, and we assess students’ demonstration of knowledge of original technical content of the course, as well as their ability to consider social justice implications of engineering design. In the earlier homework assignment, the experimental group showed a significant decrease in learning when technical concepts were framed to include social justice. As the students became more familiar with social justice considerations, their learning of technical concepts became comparable to that of students who did not have the social justice components in their assignment. Their evaluation of the social implications of technical decisions also improved.History: This paper has been accepted for the INFORMS Transactions on Education Special Issue on DEI in ORMS Classrooms.Funding: This work was supported by the Carnegie Mellon University’s Wimmer Faculty Fellowship and the National Science Foundation [Grant 2053856]. D. Nock also acknowledges support from the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, where she is an energy fellow.Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2022.0030 .","PeriodicalId":37137,"journal":{"name":"INFORMS Transactions on Education","volume":"240 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140037428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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