Technology Advisory Council

February 8, 2003

ETC 309

Agenda

9:00 a.m. - Continental Breakfast

9:30 a.m. - Technology in the Curriculum: A Classroom Simulation on the Economics of Technological Innovation. Jeff Parker, George Hay Professor of Economics

10:45 a.m. - Break

11:00 a.m. - Round-table Discussion: The Status and Future of Information Technology at Reed College. Marty Ringle, Chief Technology Officer; Marianne Colgrove, Associate Director of CIS and Director of Web & System Services; & Ethan Benatan, Director of Computer User Services

12:15 p.m. - Buffet lunch with President Colin Diver

1:45 p.m. - Adjourn

A Classroom Simulation on the Economics of Technological Innovation

Jeff Parker

George Hay Professor of Economics

This session focuses on an interactive classroom experiment in which students play a game simulating the research, development, and implementation decisions faced by firms in technologically active industries. The environment of the game asks students to make decisions about performing research and development over six possible process characteristics. Once lower-cost technologies have been learned through R&D, they can be installed in the players plants, reducing their costs of production and potentially increasing profits. Discovered technologies can be patented, which grants a temporary exclusive right to install the technology, but the cost characteristics of patented technologies are made public, potentially allowing rivals to learn about promising directions of research. As implemented in Econ 354 in 2000 and 2002, the game is played over a period of approximately three weeks, with students submitting decisions and receiving results in spreadsheets transmitted daily via electronic mail. Automation of the instructor's processing role could allow the game to be played by a larger number of students and, if desired, in one two-hour session rather than over several weeks.