Introduction to the ITE Special Issue: “Effective Use of Software in the MS/OR Classroom”

Abstract

There is no doubt that this increasing availability of technology in the classroom has dramatically changed the way we teach Management Science and Operations Research (MS/OR). Software for optimization, simulation, decision analysis and statistics is an integral component of today's MS/OR education. While the usage of software in teaching has received a growing emphasis in recent years, a large amount of the related pedagogical literature still focuses on presenting the software's features rather than on how to effectively incorporate it in our teaching. This Special Issue describes innovative use of software to support modeling, problem solving and critical thinking in teaching various MS/OR topics. Also presented are best practices and strategies for incorporating software instruction and usage in the classroom, as well as various benefits and drawbacks in learning the concepts in the field. The authors were incredibly generous in sharing their experiences in teaching with software and in providing detailed accounts on their approaches. They have also made available a rich collection of their own teaching materials including cases, tutorials, assessment tools, spreadsheet models, software packages, and teaching notes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)