COURSE POLICY
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OBJECTIVE OF THE COURSE: To acquire an understanding of the process of technological change using historical accounts, quantitative methods, and case studies. Trends in partnership industries are emphasized. I pledge to do my best to help you master the subject. COURSE MATERIAL: Structure of long and short term technological change and the factors that account for the evolution of technology. Analysis of the effects of innovation, learning, performance improvement and competition on technological change. Modeling and forecasting of technological change. WEEKLY READING ASSIGNMENTS: Fulfillment of the weekly reading assignments is mandatory. Reading assignment will constitute starting points for class discussions. WEEKLY PRESENTATION ASSIGNMENTS: Weekly presentations to the class providing an update of your work on the term project will be required and graded. Depending on team size the presentation schedule will be as follows:
Presentations must brief but of the highest quality (e.g. well thought, articulated, rehearsed and with clearly readable slides). Please avoid frills in your slides. Concentrate on content. Students must provide the class with copies of their presentations. Copies can be hardcopies or , preferably, electronic. I suggest students e-mail electronic copies to me, specifying format (i.e. ASCII Text, Word 97, Power Point 4.0 , jpg or gif files or whatever). I will review what you send and then proceed to post it on our web site under the link "Term Project Updates". You must verify that your own material can then be viewed and/or dowloaded without any glitches and please report to me if there are any problems. WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT: Students will produce one written final report summarizing their research on a term project. Research projects can be undertaken by teams but no team must be larger than 3 members. A definite project proposal is due in on 1/25. A finished draft of the final report is due on 3/29 and the final report is due on 4/12. See below for additional information about the term project. PARTICIPATORY ASSIGNMENTS: Active student participation in the form of in-class discussion is required and will be graded. Students must be prepared to discuss not only about the material in the reading assignments, but also on the instructor discourse and on their classmates' presentations. COMPUTER LABORATORY: Quantitative study of technological change requires elementary understanding of computer simulation. Models can be developed using standard spreadsheet software or programs such as Stella, I-think, Vensim and Powersim. Students will develop the sketch of a simple simulation model of the system being investigated in their term project. The model must be included in the final term project report. GRADING:
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