Management Science
SPEA-V348 · Indiana University Bloomington · O'Neill School
- Instructor team:
- Ji Ma (Instructor), [email protected]
- Teaching Assistant: TBD
- Weekly sessions: Fall 2026, Mondays & Wednesdays, 2:20–3:35 PM · Room BQ C129
- Office hours: TBD
- Course website: everything you need to learn lives here. Start at the Schedule and follow the nav from there. Canvas is only where you hand things in.
The modeling cycle, not just the answer
SPEA-V348 is an introduction to management-science models and methods for policy analysis and public management. The methods covered are decision analysis, linear programming (and its variants: goal, transportation, transshipment, and assignment), multi-criteria decision making, project scheduling, and forecasting.
The emphasis is on the full modeling cycle: setting up a model from a verbal description of a real system, selecting the appropriate technique, and interpreting and communicating the results, not merely “getting the answer.” You will gain hands-on experience translating real public- and private-sector problems into models you can solve and explain to a decision-maker.
How the course runs:
- Two sessions per teaching week (Mon + Wed). Each session opens with a practical puzzle and builds the skills to solve it, with interactive animations along the way. Dotted-underlined terms and notation open brief definitions drawn from the Key Concepts index.
- Self-checks (before- and after-class) are interactive and ungraded: practice you can retry freely. Most Session 1 meetings also end with a short in-class group practice that counts toward participation.
- The graded work is a weekly software take-home (Excel and decision-analysis tools): the task is posted on the week’s page, and you submit your file in Canvas. The term ends in Week 16, whose two sessions are the individual synthesis presentations. There is no final exam and no finals-week meeting.
- AI tools are welcome, with disclosure, as long as you can reproduce and explain your own work. See Using AI.
Software & setup
You’ll model mostly in Excel, plus a few free decision-analysis tools. Install these early.
Microsoft Excel + Solver is the main modeling environment. Enable the Solver add-in (used from Week 8 for linear and integer programming):
- Windows: File → Options → Add-ins → Manage: Excel Add-ins → Go… → check Solver Add-in.
- Mac: Tools → Excel Add-ins… → check Solver.
IU students can get Microsoft 365 through the university’s software portal.
Decision-analysis tools (used from Week 5 onward, decision trees and Bayesian decision analysis):
| Tool | Use | Where to get it |
|---|---|---|
| SilverDecisions | Decision trees in the browser (no install) | silverdecisions.pl |
| SimpleDecisionTree | Excel add-in for decision trees | posted in Canvas (see Week 5) |
| Netica | Bayesian networks / decision networks | norsys.com (Netica), free limited edition |
Prefer the vendor pages above for the latest installers. Week 5 covers the two tree tools and Week 6 covers Netica.
Respondus LockDown Browser is required for the six short in-class checkpoints (see Grading), the first of them on Wed Sep 16. Install it before the assignments kick in and learn how to use it, not in the five minutes before a checkpoint, and bring the laptop you installed it on to class.
Reading materials
Required textbook: Bernard W. Taylor III, Introduction to Management Science, 13th edition.
Earlier editions are usually fine as long as the topics are covered; if a chapter differs substantially, ask a classmate or use the university library. Per-week chapter readings are listed on each week’s lesson page.
Grading
Graded work is scored out of 100 points:
| Component | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Regular take-homes | 55 | Weeks 1–13 and 15. 5 pts each, best 11 of 14 count. |
| Course synthesis | 16 | The individual submission due Sun Dec 13 (14, own rubric) plus the Week 16 presentation sessions (2, 1 per session). |
| In-class checkpoints | 15 | Six 15-minute individual quizzes on set dates, 2.5 pts each: ten questions drawn at random from the self-checks and take-homes of every week finished so far, unaided. |
| In-class participation | 14 | Fourteen group practices, 1 pt each, in Weeks 1–13 and 15. |
| Total | 100 |
A few things the table doesn’t say:
- The three lowest take-homes drop, so a rough week or two won’t sink your grade. The course synthesis is a larger, choose-your-own applied task, announced back in Week 12 so you have time to pick well.
- The presentation points don’t depend on being drawn. About ten students present, drawn at random in the room, but the 2 points are for being there and ready on Dec 7 and Dec 9 either way.
- Nothing on a checkpoint is new to you. Every question comes from a self-check or a take-home you have already worked, and the pool is cumulative across the weeks finished so far. The six dates are set in advance: Sep 16, Sep 30, Oct 21, Nov 4, Nov 18 and Dec 2. They run in Respondus LockDown Browser (install it early; see Software & setup), take 15 minutes, and are easy if you kept up.
- Group practices double as attendance: each one is both a participation point and half of that session’s attendance record (see Policies).
One thing sits outside these 100 points, the attendance deduction described under Policies applies on top of whatever the table earns you.
Your point total is your percentage, so the letter scale below applies directly (e.g. 93 points = A):
- A+ ≥ 97, A ≥ 93, A− ≥ 90
- B+ ≥ 87, B ≥ 83, B− ≥ 80
- C+ ≥ 77, C ≥ 73, C− ≥ 70
- D+ ≥ 67, D ≥ 63, D− ≥ 60
- F < 60
These are the letter grades Indiana University awards and the GPA points each carries are on IU’s grading system page; the percentage cutoffs above are this course’s.
Getting help & support
- Office hours: listed at the top of this page. You don’t need a reason to come.
- Math refresher: Weeks 1–2 review the algebra, functions, summation, probability, and expected-value skills the course relies on; the self-checks there are a good diagnostic.
- Student support: accommodations, counseling, and free 24/7 virtual mental-health care are all available to you; contacts and details are on the Policies page. If something is affecting your work, reach out early. It’s always easier to help sooner than later.
Policies
The 3-3-3 rule
3 absences free · 3 late submissions free · each within 3 days.
Three of each, no questions asked, for the ordinary things life throws at you. After that the arithmetic takes over: −1 point per absence, 0 for late work, and 9 absences is an automatic F.
We write it this plainly so you never have to ask permission or explain yourself for the ordinary stuff, and so you always know exactly where you stand. It’s the same for everyone, which also means we can’t make an exception for one person that we wouldn’t make for the whole room.
Attendance: the “3 absences”
- Your first three absences are free. No explanation, no email, no doctor’s note. Use them for illness, a job interview, a rough week, a family thing, whatever comes up.
- After that, each absence costs 1 point off your final course grade. At 9 absences the course is an automatic F; that’s roughly a third of the term, and past that point there isn’t enough of the course left to pass honestly.
- You’re marked present when you’ve done both: signed that session’s sign-in sheet and handed in that session’s in-class work, where there is any. On a session with no in-class work, the signature alone does it. Both halves count, because otherwise signing in and doing nothing would cost less than an honest absence, so a sheet with only your name on it counts as nothing handed in.
- The sheet comes around once, at a moment we don’t announce: sometimes early, sometimes in the last five minutes. Plan to be there for the whole session. There’s no signing afterward, and signing for a friend puts you both into the academic-misconduct process, so please don’t put any of us in that position.
- In-class work is earned in the room. If you’re not there, that item scores 0 and there’s no make-up: that covers group practices, checkpoints, and the Week 16 synthesis sessions. One thing to be clear about, because it surprises people: the free absences waive the attendance penalty only, and never give you back points from an item you missed. A free absence on a day with graded work still costs you that work.
- You can check your own count anytime. Attendance goes into Canvas after each session, so you always know where you stand without having to ask. We’ll flag the running totals three times: around Week 8, around Week 13, and once before grades close. If something looks wrong, tell us within a week of that posting and we’ll check it against the sign-in sheets; after that week the count stands.
- Two exceptions, both arranged in advance: a documented AES accommodation, and religious observance under IU policy ACA-59. Get those to us by the end of Week 2 where you can. An approved session isn’t recorded as an absence at all, and it’s the one circumstance where missed in-class work can be made up; we’ll arrange an alternative together. Everything else (illness, travel, work, athletics, family) is exactly what the three free absences are for. Forms and details are on the Policies page.
Late work: the “3 late submissions, 3 days”
- You get three no-penalty late submissions for the semester. No explanation and no advance notice needed, just submit.
- Each one covers you for 72 hours past the deadline. Beyond three days it’s a 0, even if you have passes left, and once your three are spent any late submission is a 0. There’s no partial credit, per-day scale, or extension process to negotiate.
- If you submitted anything by the deadline, your last on-time version is what we grade: a later replacement isn’t evaluated, and it doesn’t spend a pass. A pass is only spent when nothing at all was in on time. So if you think you’ll need a late pass, don’t upload a placeholder first: that placeholder becomes your graded work.
- 72 hours is clock time, weekends and holidays included, and the Canvas timestamp is the record.
- In-class items can’t be late: you were in the room or you weren’t.
- The best-11-of-14 drop is a separate cushion and it stays, but it forgives weak or missing take-homes rather than late ones. It has nothing to do with the checkpoints, which don’t depend on what you submitted.
AI, integrity, and the university rules
- Generative AI is permitted, with disclosure. The test is whether you can reproduce, modify, and explain your own model unaided. Using AI has the full policy. What’s encouraged, what isn’t, and how the graded work is designed so honest use costs you nothing.
- Academic integrity. All submitted work must be your own. Sharing a solved workbook is misconduct for both people; talking through a method together is not. That’s what the group practices are for.
- University policies (the O’Neill Honor Code, academic misconduct, what you can do with course materials, withdrawal deadlines, accommodations, and IU’s counseling, mental-health, and Title IX resources) are collected on the Policies page.