Policies

The university and O'Neill School policies behind this course, plus the IU support you're entitled to as a student.

The rules that move your grade live on the home page, the 3-3-3 rule and late work, and on Using AI. This page is the layer underneath: what Indiana University and the O’Neill School require every syllabus to say, and the support you’re entitled to as an IU student. Where a policy belongs to the university or the school, this page links to it rather than reprinting it, because those documents get revised and theirs is the version that governs. Anything summarized here is orientation.

Credits and workload

SPEA-V 348 Management Science · 3 credits · Prerequisite: SPEA-K 300, MATH-M 025, or MATH-M 118

An introduction to management-science models and methods for policy analysis and public management, built around the full modeling cycle rather than just getting the answer. The home page has the full description and the grading table; the Schedule maps the term week by week.

Expect an average of 6 or more hours a week outside class on reading, the weekly take-home, and practice. Weeks 1–2 are lighter (math refresher); Solver weeks and the course synthesis run heavier.

Course policies

These are the policies IU requires every syllabus to state plainly. The full versions of the first three live under Policies on the home page.

  • Attendance. Three absences carry no penalty; after that each one costs a point off your final grade, and nine absences is an automatic F. You’re present when you’ve both signed in and handed in that session’s in-class work. Attendance is recorded in Canvas so you can check your own count whenever you like (full rule).
  • Missed in-class work and make-ups. There is no final exam in this course. The six in-class checkpoints, the group practices, and the Week 16 synthesis sessions are earned in the room and can’t be made up; the one exception is an approved religious observance or AES accommodation, arranged in advance (full rule). The six checkpoint dates are published in advance and all fall between Weeks 4 and 15, so none lands in the last week of classes or during finals week.
  • Late assignments. Three no-penalty late submissions, each valid within 72 hours of the deadline (full rule).
  • Technology in class. This is a software course, so bring a laptop, with Respondus LockDown Browser installed for the six in-class checkpoints. Set that up before the term starts (see Software & setup). Otherwise use your judgment and keep devices on course work. Keep your phone on silent rather than off: IU sends campus emergency alerts by text.
  • Withdrawing from the course. Deadlines are on the official Registrar calendar. After the auto-W deadline withdrawal is significantly limited, needs permission, and must meet O’Neill’s requirements. Come talk to us early. There are usually better options than withdrawing.
  • Changes to the schedule. The schedule is subject to limited change in the event of extenuating circumstances. Any change is announced in class and on Canvas.

O’Neill Student Honor Code

The O’Neill School substantially revised its Student Honor Code (PDF, two pages) for 2026–27, and it applies to you here. It covers academic conduct (incorporating IU’s Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, & Conduct and its definitions of cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, interference, violation of course rules, and facilitating dishonesty) and civility and professional conduct: attending prepared, staying for the session, following the device policy, carrying your share of group work, treating people with respect.

One clause is the hinge between it and this course: academic misconduct includes AI use “that is not permitted by the instructor.” Here the tier labels are what set that permission. See below.

Academic integrity

Your responsibilities as an IU student are defined in the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, & Conduct; its academic misconduct section is what any integrity question in this course gets decided against.

Two edges are specific to this course.

Acknowledgment keeps AI use clean. Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work as your own without acknowledging it, so with AI permitted here, the disclosure is what does the work. Disclosed use never costs you points; an undisclosed or false disclosure is the violation, as is submitting a model you can’t rebuild and explain. Using AI sets the lines, and the in-class checkpoints are how the course confirms you can do the work unaided.

A solved workbook is not shareable. Handing one to a classmate, or a chat transcript containing one, is academic misconduct for both of you. Talking through a method together is not; that’s what the group practices are for.

Course materials and AI

This course’s AI policy is what governs your work. It lives on Using AI, with a tier label on every graded task: Tier 0 unaided in class, Tier 1 AI allowed with disclosure, Tier 2 AI expected and your critique graded.

O’Neill asks every syllabus to state the instructor’s rights over course materials. In our words: we hold the rights to what we make for this course. Take notes and use them however you like for your own learning; don’t re-post, distribute, sell, or upload them to a generative-AI tool without permission. Selling gets reported to the Dean of Students as academic misconduct, and doing it over IU email or through Canvas pulls in IU’s IT and intellectual-property policies too.

Here is that permission, in writing. Everything published on this website is cleared: these pages, the weekly lesson pages, the self-checks, and the starter .xlsx workbooks and .docx practice files you download from them. Paste them into whatever tool you like, subject to the tier labels. It does not cover:

  • the Tier 0 in-class checkpoints. No AI during or about them, and nothing from a checkpoint goes into a chatbot afterward;
  • another student’s work, in any form: a solved workbook, a shared file, a photo of their screen;
  • anything we hand out in class or post to Canvas that isn’t published here;
  • anything we mark as not-for-AI.

The selling clause isn’t boilerplate we’re quietly ignoring: don’t post this course’s workbooks or materials to Chegg, Course Hero, Studocu, or a shared drive.

Support, accommodations, and safety

Use these. Asking early is always cheaper than asking late.

Accessible Educational Services (AES)

Accommodations are a shared responsibility between you, us, and the AES office. Send us your memo early in the term and we’ll set things up quietly. You never have to explain the underlying reason. This matters especially for the timed in-class model checks, where extended time is straightforward to arrange with notice. If you think you might qualify and have never registered, AES is where to start.

If anything on this site is hard to use with a screen reader, keyboard, or magnifier, the interactive widgets included, tell us. IU is working toward full digital-accessibility compliance, and we’d rather fix it than have you work around it.

Religious observance

IU policy ACA-59 protects your right to observe religious holidays without academic penalty, and it’s the one route by which missed in-class work can be made up. The form, deadline, and procedure are on IU’s religious observances page, currently a Request for Accommodation for Religious Observances form to us at least two weeks ahead, one per absence per course. Please get them to us by the end of Week 2 where you can, so we can plan the alternative work together.

Counseling and mental health

If something bigger is going on in your life, tell us what you can. We don’t need details, and we’d much rather help you plan around a hard stretch than watch you disappear from the roster.

Sexual misconduct and Title IX

Title IX and IU’s Sexual Misconduct policy prohibit sexual misconduct, and titleix.iu.edu is the office that handles it. For confidential support, IU’s Find Help page lists the current Bloomington contacts: the Sexual Assault Crisis Service, CAPS, the Confidential Victim Advocates, and the IU Health Center. If you’re in immediate danger, call or text 911.

We are not confidential resources. University policy requires us to pass along any report of potential sexual misconduct to the Title IX Coordinator, after which a small number of people work to offer resources and appropriate measures, sharing information only with those who need it to respond. We’re telling you up front so you can choose who you talk to.

IU Culture Centers

The IU Culture Centers offer community, programming, and a place to land. Open to everyone.

Syllabus posting follows IU policy ACA-85: this site is the syllabus for V348, and it’s posted to the Canvas syllabus page before the term begins.