MN4128 Advanced Topics in Manpower Policy Evaluation

The DoD is constantly evaluating the feasibility and likely consequences of various policy proposals. Typically, however, these analyses must be executed in a short period of time. This course prepares students to conduct real-time policy analysis in the DoD, focusing on the inevitable tradeoffs between depth of analysis and speed of completion. Students will practice using the theoretical and analytical skills learned in pre-requisite courses to derive data-driven solutions to policy questions. Students will also learn new data-presentation and data-visualization techniques that enable them to present those solutions to decision makers in a robust and coherent manner.

Prerequisite

This is a follow on course to the MSA curriculum econometric sequence. Students should be familiar with the topics and statistical software used in MN4110 and MN4111

Lecture Hours

Lab Hours

Course Learning Outcomes

· Within a typical military staff setting, the student will create and execute a plan to analyze real world manpower policy problems in order to provide a decision maker evidence with which to make a decision.

· Given a properly coded and cleaned dataset, the student will employ R to estimate basic statistical models for the purpose of manpower policy evaluation.

· Given datasets in a variety of formats, the student will demonstrate the ability to merge, manipulate, and properly code data using R in order to perform appropriate statistical analyses.

· Given a properly coded and cleaned dataset, the student will employ R to generate effective data visualization techniques for the purpose of performing statistical analyses and/or real-time policy evaluation.

· Given a typical real-world policy problem and set of information, the student will generate a quick turn-around manpower policy analysis in R and present managerially relevant results.