System Dynamics course again
March 21, 2010 | 1:38 pmI have been quite busy the last months. Besides my economic studies I am taking two distance courses related to System Dynamics. One is a Macroeconomic course the uses system dynamics to explain economic market behaviour. I will write a post about that course later. The other course is called System Dynamics II given from Portland State University (USA).
System Dynamics II is an advanced course that has a seminar-type approach, where students prepare and present portions of the content. Course literature is Sterman’s book, Business Dynamics. The application areas emphasize economics and business, but other important and interesting subjects has also been discussed. Some of the topics has been model testing, policy analysis, dynamics of growth, the spread of disease, and diffusion of innovation. We have gone deeper into modelling of delays, co-flows, ageing chains, non-linear relationships, decision-making, human behaviour, forecasting, supply chains, and business cycles.
With just the project assignment left I can say I have learned a lot. I have been the only distance student. Unfortunately we could not arrange for synchronous participating on my part in the discussion sessions, but discussing through list and listening to recorded sessions has worked out very well. The teacher, Professor Wayne Wakeland, has been a great help and inspiration.
Other posts about this subject you might want to read:
System dynamics learnings so far
MIT Opencourseware SD Lecture Notes
System dynamics video course
Updates on the system dynamics course
Hi,
If you haven’t already, you might want to check out the distance learning program in SD at Worcester Polytechnic Institute at wpi.edu, StrategyDynamics.com, and Pegasus publishing. The SystemsWiki.org is a pretty good resource
There are a number of discussion group on SD/ST in LinkIn. Quality varies.
Good to see continued interest in SD/ST.
Hi Henry,
Thanks for the comment. Yes, I know about those resources. Worcester seems to have good quality, but is very expensive. Michael Radzicki’s course in Macroeconomics is very tempting. Kim Warren at StrategyDynamics has written some interesting books. The newsletter Systems Thinker from Pegasus is worth subscribing to. I am member in Environmental Special Interest Group of the System Dynamics Society and International Society for Ecological Economics at LinkedIn. Being a member of the System Dynamics Society is also great. You get access to System Dynamics review and some other journals.
It looks as if you are about to set up a site about SD?
/Anders