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Lessons from an interdisciplinary system dynamics course
Author(s) -
Hovmand Peter S.,
O'Sullivan Joseph A.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
system dynamics review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.491
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1099-1727
pISSN - 0883-7066
DOI - 10.1002/sdr.410
Subject(s) - system dynamics , work (physics) , social dynamics , course (navigation) , dynamics (music) , engineering ethics , computer science , management science , engineering management , social system , engineering , sociology , pedagogy , artificial intelligence , mechanical engineering , aerospace engineering
System dynamics has long held a promise of solving social problems. Such efforts benefit from interdisciplinary teams that can combine strong technical skills for modeling and analysis with people skills for working with stakeholders and understanding the substantive issues of social problems. In this note we describe a joint graduate system dynamics course between social work and electrical and systems engineering that emphasizes students learning how to develop and work in interdisciplinary teams to address social problems. We discuss the advantages of such teams, some of the challenges, and share lessons from the experience. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.