Introduction to From Theory to Practice

Figure 4- Flow diagram of a simple distance education system

System dynamics modeling provides the means for those who are involved in various activities in an organization, and have a management or decision-making role in these activities to:

• Formally evaluate the current status of a university;
• Combine hard data with soft data (intuitive views of stakeholders) for assessing the current status of an organization and making decisions about its future;
• Develop strategies and options to resolve current outstanding issues;
• Become aware of problems that are not present now, but may occur in the future;
• Devise plans to avert the occurrence of future problems;
• Test the viability of plans under different assumptions before they are actually implemented in the real organization;
• Implement changes in the real organization and assess their results; and Revise the model, develop new plans,
• and implement again

This section provides information for facilitating the modeling and planning process for your institution.