Wicked Problems
If you work in an organisation that deals with social, commercial or financial planning - or any type of public policy planning - then you've got wicked problems. You may not call them by this name, but you know what they are. They are those complex, ever changing societal and organisational planning problems that you haven't been able to treat with much success, because they won't keep still. They're messy, devious, and they fight back when you try to deal with them. Keywords: Wicked problems, general morphological analysis, policy analysis, Horst Rittel Introduction In 1973, Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, both urban planners at the University of Berkley in California, wrote an article for Policy Sciences with the astounding title "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning". At first glance, it is not self-evident what is actually meant by this term. Also, wicked problems are not actually "problems" in the sense of having well defined and stable problem statements. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Office of Technology Development
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Operations research
Operations research, or operational research in British usage, is a discipline that deals with the application of advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions.[1] It is often considered to be a sub-field of mathematics.[2] The terms management science and decision science are sometimes used as synonyms.[3] Employing techniques from other mathematical sciences, such as mathematical modeling, statistical analysis, and mathematical optimization, operations research arrives at optimal or near-optimal solutions to complex decision-making problems. Because of its emphasis on human-technology interaction and because of its focus on practical applications, operations research has overlap with other disciplines, notably industrial engineering and operations management, and draws on psychology and organization science. Overview[edit] The major subdisciplines in modern operational research, as identified by the journal Operations Research,[6] are: History[edit] Historical origins[edit]
New England Complex Systems Institute
Office of Technology Development
It’s a wicked problem, stupid! | CSL4D
What’s the link between wicked problems and systems thinking? Horst Rittel The first person to call wicked problems so was professor Horst Rittel of the University of California Architecture Department, presumably at a seminar on problems in urban planning, in or prior to 1967. There are many other fields where wicked problems emerge, among them climate change, poverty, sustainability, brain drains, obesity, ageing, migration, interminable conflicts (Vietnam, Afghanistan), the war on drugs, tax havens, the banking system, law & order, social work, education, international development, and business. In fact, West Churchman (1967) – jokingly? Wicked problems are mischievous – and perhaps even evil – because their “solutions” often turn out to be worse than the symptoms. Click on image for full concept map Yet, wicked problems, too, must be addressed. Wicked problems share certain characteristics. This post was produced using concept mapping and structured writing (see other posts).
Reflexive Pedagogy
Over the past few months, we at ProfHacker have written articles about class/course assessment and how important it is to get students’ input in class evaluations. Certainly, course evaluations contain important information for the instructor and the university, but they rarely measure what the students actually learned in that course. We can use traditional methods of evaluation to gauge what students have learned, and that helps us (giving tests, assigning grades). But do these traditional methods of assessment and evaluation of student work help students recognize what they have learned? Self-reflexivity can help students and educators identify the “what” and the “why” of student learning. Reflexivity, on the other hand, is to engage in the moment, to understand the thoughts and feelings of an experience while experiencing that experience. This dual understanding becomes key if we want students to retain what they have learned. What question do you have? [Image by Flickr user Envios.
The future of credentials
By Salman Khan, Special to CNN Editor’s note: Salman Khan is the founder of Khan Academy, a not-for-profit educational organization whose mission is “to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere.” Khan is the author of “The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined” (Twelve). (CNN) – When people talk about education, they are usually mixing together several ideas. Let’s try a simple thought experiment: What if we were to separate the teaching and credentialing roles of universities? With our hypothetical assessments - microcredentials, if you will - people could prove that they know just as much in a specific domain as those with an exclusive diploma. In short, it would make the credential that most students and parents need cheaper (since it is an assessment that is not predicated on seat time in lecture halls) and more powerful - it would tell employers who is best ready to contribute at their organizations based on metrics that they find important.
2014 - (Schoder et al) Information Systems for “Wicked Problems”
The objective of this commentary is to propose fruitful research directions built upon the reciprocal interplay of social media and collective intelligence. We focus on “wicked problems” – a class of problems that Introne et al. (Künstl. Intell. 27:45–52, 2013) call “problems for which no single computational formulation of the problem is sufficient, for which different stakeholders do not even agree on what the problem really is, and for which there are no right or wrong answers, only answers that are better or worse from different points of view”. We argue that information systems research in particular can aid in designing appropriate systems due to benefits derived from the combined perspectives of both social media and collective intelligence. Accepted after two revisions by the editors of the special focus.
