The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences will host the second installment of its free two-part workshop on community-based system dynamics (CBSD). The event seeks to position CBSD as a participatory systems science method for engaging and working with organizations and communities to address complex problems and advance equity.
The second workshop, titled “System Dynamics Computer Simulation and Analysis,” will be held Friday, Dec. 2, from 10 a.m. to noon.
Peter Hovmand, the Pamela B. Davis Professor of Medicine in the Center for Community Health Integration at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, will lead the workshop.
Individuals need not have attended the first session to participate. While CBSD draws on both qualitative and quantitative methods, the approach does not rely on prior formal training in qualitative or quantitative research methods, computer programming or math beyond basic algebra.
This workshop will provide a demonstration of how results from group model building can be translated into computer simulation models that can in turn be quantitatively analyzed to identify leverage points and the underlying feedback mechanisms driving trends. Participants will experience group model building exercises using “the future of social work research” as the topic, see a demonstration of software for simulating models, and publish interactive online interfaces that run on any smartphone, tablet or laptop computer. Participants will be able to access workshop materials and explore models with a free workshop license to the software.