Decision Science On-Line Course

CHDS Faculty Director Sue J. Goldie and Senior Research Scientist Eve Wittenberg offers the on-line decision science course “RDS 202: Decision Science for Public Health” for the upcoming Spring semester. This is the second year the course has been offered at the Harvard Chan School and was created in partnership with the MPH-Epidemiology degree program.

The course provides students with an introduction to the methods and applications of decision science and cost-effectiveness analysis in clinical and public health decision making. Offered with a variety of synchronous and asynchronous components that complement the learning style of on-line students, materials include weekly multimedia videos, engagement activities, readings, and homework problem sets.

Originally piloted in 2017, RDS 202 was the first on-line introductory course in decision science offered at Harvard. Course multimedia and learning design components for RDS 202 were developed in partnership with the CHDS Media Hub. Since its original pilot year, the on-line course has been used as a teaching and learning laboratory with multimodal prototypes and pilot revisions based on what was learned in the prior course year. Deliberate modifications are made to enhance the online learning environment, which emphasize learner agency and access, as well as refining novel teaching methods that enabled more effective instruction.

Senior collaborator Dr. Djøra Soeteman and teaching fellows John Giardina and Fangli Geng join the team this Spring. Among new course features and materials, the course will offer two optional labs on decision modeling using the software Amua.

More about the CHDS Media Hub

The CHDS Media Hub combines a physical brainstorming space with a laboratory-like digital environment to prototype, pilot and produce educational multimedia for teaching, learning and policy translation. If you are interested in collaborating with the CHDS Media Hub, please contact the Media Hub Director, Jake Waxman.

Learn more: Watch the original video trailer from the first year of the course.