Every day, nuanced decisions are made at a personal level (what job offer to accept), an organizational level (whether to recall a faulty product), and in the form of public policy (when and where to develop renewable energy). This course introduces decision analytic tools for systematically structuring messy problems to identify trade-offs among different decisions and to explore them intelligibly. For public policy problems, the challenges of values conflicts and "truth decay" (i.e., the political polarization or outright rejection of facts) will be considered. Additional decision contexts that push the limits of traditional analytic approaches will also be addressed (e.g. wicked problems, deep uncertainty).
The Winter 2023 offering of this course will be integrated with the international student competition Map the System. Learn how to understand a wicked problem, present it back to others in a way that people can understand, share, and learn from, and compete for cash prizes.
Notes: This course is an approved elective for the KI Science, Technology & Society Specialization; completion of (or concurrent enrolment in) a statistics course is recommended.
Prereq: Level at least 3A or instructor consent
Antireq: MSCI 452, INTEG 475 (001) W16, INTEG 475 (002) W18
most recent INTEG 441 syllabus (in the Outline Repository)
INTEG 441 official course description (in the Undergraduate Academic Calendar)