What are the Decision and Policy Sciences at UAlbany?

David Andersen

I hope that you can come to the DAPS-Lunch at noon on October 8 in Milne 215, with a discussion 
to start at 12:15.  Recently I was asked to make a presentation to the INF PhD program about DAPS 
and it now seems clear to me that our curriculum on the books is quite out of date.  In both the PAD 
and INF version of DAPS we list only two tracks—modeling and simulation and judgment and decision making.  
But DAPS at UAlbany now includes network analysis and behavioral economics (at least).  I intend this 
discussion to compare and contrast what we say about DAPS in our literature and what are our current 
strengths “on the ground” as it were.  The outcome of this DAPS-Brown Bag could be a refocusing of how 
we think about this concentration.



Notes from discussion


Actions / Suggestions
- Provide more practical non-academic experience
- Clarify what path heads to what when I graduate
- Create a post core set of integrative pro-seminars
- Create a course to position decision sciences within different academic homes
- We need to redo the list of electives & explicate rationale (eg. consulting skills)
- expand offering to other units on campus & other classes in PAD that should be here

Comments
- Path connection to careers unclear
- After core courses, there is no unifying framework
- Required courses do not connect well to field electives & some electives are not offered & 
  some new courses need to be added
- Some advanced courses only offered on demand
- Other courses on campus can be offered (eg. agent-based courses in GEO