School talk:Strategic studies

Good start on this school so far. Is this related to any brick-and-mortar institutional activity, by any chance? I'd suggest, in any case, that the units/modules of study to be undertaken are indicated by some sort of real name rather than a number, like "Str 1100" (which doesn't mean much outside the US, as far as I'm aware - see Naming conventions). All the best. Cormaggio 15:38, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I was actually just following the example of the Poli Sci School. I've been looking around and there is actually not a good feel for what exactly this place is supposed to be... as much as it seems people are trying to write about it, I don't think anybody is standardizing at all... so I hope at some point someone just comes along and standardizes the great chain of being here. For now I'm structuring it sort of like my own training, and trying to make it look like a proper B.A. course load. If I had it my own way, I'd have used a Canadian numbering system.--Dnjkirk 16:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Fully understood, point taken, and thanks for pointing it out. You're absolutely right that we need to make the basics more clear to newcomers - though, in a sense, we are also trying to encourage people to try out their own ideas too (and, of course, everything's modifiable). But, in any case, the fact that you've just 'jumped in' and starting developing your own material is most encouraging. Welcome to Wikiversity! Cormaggio 22:32, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Actually you can't imagine how happy I am that something like this exists. The world needs more free information, and I am so stoked that Wikiversity has been started up. My understanding of Learning Projects though is somewhat different from the way it seems they are being used. Most people seem to thing a project is a full class, but I thought they were parts of a class that are discreet activities with discreet learning objectives, and that classes were made up of projects. For example, I might make a course "War in the Middle Ages" and have a project called "Build a Catapult" or something like that. Once that project had been completed by the student, maybe they would then look at the "Play a Simple Medieval Wargame" project. Am I on crack?--Dnjkirk 04:56, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
 * That sounds great to me - and there's absolutely no need to feel reticent about creating learning projects (or courses, or however you're structuring it for now) into as general, specific, long or short projects as you like. So maybe you could use that "crack-ness" towards simply creating tonnes of material.. :-) Cormaggio 18:21, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

A vision for this page
I'm looking to turn this into a model Undergraduate program comprised of classes that should hopefully span 30 hours of project work each. Each class should hopefully be accompanied by ample reading material. The reading material in its raw form can be stored in the "Topics" Section on the main school page. General and broad topics are listed, and if you want to set yourself to hunting and gathering, then you can start piling resources (both on and offline) into the Topics of Study section, my interpretation of the Learning Materials concept. Below is an image of what I envision, but since it's still early days, this may just end up being a crappy picture with blobs of colour on it: (The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dnjkirk (talk • contribs) 18:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC).)


 * This all looks great, but please stop making empty pages. I'm trying to keep abreast of changes in this Department (particularly as they relate to the History department), and they keep me unnecessarily busy.  The Jade Knight 09:23, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The original blanks were put up some time ago when I was new to this. If I put up blanks now, it's either to work out structure or to hash out ideas and outlines. Cheers for keeping track, I actually hope to get a history course up and running soon, just have to find time between baby and work. My original discipline was history.--Dnjkirk 17:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Resolution issue?
This page doesn't seem to work (lacks having both columns next to each-other) on smaller resolutions or computers with bigger fonts. The computer I'm on is 1024 x 768 with a medium-sized font, and the page doesn't format correctly unless the page is maximized. The Jade Knight 19:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Decision Theory, Reasoning Under Uncertainty, Interpretation of Statistics
A rational agent which is supposed to make strategies to deal with a situation should obey the rationality critera set forth by decision theory (maximizing expected utility, given risk aversion levels and known data), and should take into account the statistical nature of the universe (using bayesian or frequentist statistics, or a mix). While it's true that humans and computers are, at best, limited rational agents, I still believe strongly that the cirriculum should cover this material, both in an abstract manner, and with concrete applications to various strategic problems. Any study of strategy that neglects the nature of rational decisionmaking (especially with regards to incomplete and uncertain information) is necessarily incomplete. As for how to go about this, well I've taken several classes in this area when I went for my masters degree, so interested individuals could get in touch with me. - JustinWick 02:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)


 * This is a good point, but in a School of Strategic Studies (S3) is there a real need to offer a full course on this issue ? In my opinion it should be dealt with by the School of Political Science curriculum. S3 students should be aware of decision making and bounded rationality models while they study, for example, the way military organizations react to their environment, but don't you think there would be enough of one or two classes to give S3 students enough material to fully understand the basics of rationality in decisionmaking ? --CorentinB 10:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Adding and moving courses
Dnjkirk, as a French guy the courses' numbers dont mean anything to me :) Please, could you take a few minutes to explain what's the logic behind these numbers ? How do you choose them ? Would you mind if I changed them ? About the two types of courses: I guess the "Elective" ones should deal with more precise issues ? --CorentinB 21:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Personally, I think all this adopting of course #s is premature. The Jade Knight 02:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Corentin: the logic was to organize them into groupings of level of difficulty (higher numbers in the hundreds would indicate an increasing number of prerequisites). The rest just denote a course's difference from other courses. Since I was the only person actively working on the courses, I organized them in a way I saw fit for my own purposes. If you'd like to reorganize them, be my guest. It helps to put things into logical structures, especially when you are building something big.--Dnjkirk 15:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks to both, I'm gonna take a look at it ASAP and will try to do some changes toward a more interdisciplinary approach.--CorentinB 22:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

will the goverments ever work together as they say they do 4 us all or is it all say so
will the goverments ever work together as they say they do 4 us all or is it all say so

Course- Fall 2008
I would be interested in taking courses in this area.--Jolie 22:34, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

in the absence of teachers and having a rising level of curiousity, I will be studying this subject from notes. ST100 has a developed course; I will start studying. --Jolie 19:41, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I am very interested in strategy, and know something about it, but unfortunately have neither the time nor the expertise to develop this course. If you want someone to discuss what you're learning with, however, I'd be glad to be a sounding-board.  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 20:06, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

wonderful; I'm posting notes here

if I have questions I'll leave notes in your discussion page.--Jolie 17:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)