Introductory business OR cases: successful use of cases in introductory undergraduate business college operational resea
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Introductory business OR cases: successful use of cases in introductory undergraduate business college operational research courses JJ Cochran* Louisiana Tech University, LA, USA A case methodology for developing the modelling skills of students in introductory operational research courses taught in undergraduate business programmes is presented. Motivated by a desire to develop such skills in students when the primary objective of such courses was to expose these students to various solution techniques, the approach takes on greater relevance now that many instructors of such courses have shifted their focus to the development of modelling skills. Example case scenarios that have been used by the author in the classroom are presented, and a comparison of the results achieved by the author after implementation of the case methodology is made with those achieved by the author prior to implementation. Keywords: operational research education; case method; innovative education; business education
Introduction Throughout my ®rst year of teaching at the university level, I was assigned one or two sections of Introduction to Operations Research I per academic term at Wright State University. In this third-year undergraduate level course, which was the ®rst course in a two-quarter sequence in operational research required of all undergraduate business majors, deterministic methods were covered in classes of approximately 40 ± 45 students. Common topics included linear programming (including the graphical technique, simplex method and sensitivity analysis), transportation and assignment problems (including the modi®ed distribution and Hungarian algorithms), integer programming and goal programming. As I progressed through the academic year, I perceived that my students did not share my enthusiasm for the subject. Furthermore, the general level of frustration that many of my students were experiencing was consistent with the attitude I had noticed among my cohorts when I took the same course just a few years prior. After discussing the situation with colleagues at Wright State and various other universities, I concluded that student frustration with this type of course was extremely common. This paper details the approach I took to rectify this problem and how implementation of this approach may help other instructors under similar circumstances. As was typical of such courses in the mid-to-late 1980s, the primary emphasis was on the algebra of various soluCorrespondence: JJ Cochran, Department of Computer Information Systems and Analysis, College of Administration and Business, PO Box 10318, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 71272, USA.
tion algorithms, while the primary format was the traditional lecture. Many students who had taken this course complained that they did not see the relevance of operations research to their education. The examples utilized were often trivial and did not represent meaningful a
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