The System Design and Operational Effectiveness (SDOE) program: Experiences and lessons learned

The SDOE program at Stevens Institute of Technologies was created to address the graduate level education requirements of integrators and users of complex, multi-functional, knowledge intensive, and distributed systems. The motivation behind the program, its objectives and rationale, and its programmatic structure and delivery modes were presented in [8]. The objective of the program is to inculcate and nurture skills associated with abstract problem solving to address design synthesis and the quantitative modeling, simulation, and optimization techniques for design analysis and evaluation. A key aspect of the program is the use of project-based and case-based learning to facilitate understanding of the overarching "cause and effect" dependency between system design and system operations/support, with a view to enhancing System Operational Effectiveness (SOE). The SOE concept was developed and explained in [8]. This technical paper presents adaptations made to the program structure and the curriculum over the past two years, along with a sample course outline and student evaluations. Specific lessons learned are also discussed.