The table below provides information on the course’s lecture (L) and recitations (R) sessions.
| SES # | TOPICS | LECTURERS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|---|
| L1 | Introduction to Technology and Policy | Prof. Weigel |
Lecture Slides (PDF) Moidel, Steve. “The Six Major Reading Problems,” and “Double Your Reading Speed in an Hour.” Chapters 3 and 4 in Speed Reading for Business. 2nd ed. Hauppauge, NY: Barrons, 1998. ISBN: 0764104012. |
| L2 | The Heart of Policy Arguments - Equity, Efficiency, Liberty, Security | Prof. Weigel |
Stone, Deborah. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2001, chapters 1-5. ISBN: 0393976254. Press releases: “September 11th Compensation Fund Regulations Announced,” and “Spitzer Criticizes DOJ Regulations on September 11th Victim Compensation Fund.” (PDF) Hadfield, Gillian K. “The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund: ‘An Unprecedented Experiment in American Democracy’.” University of Southern California. University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series. Working Paper 3, May 2005. (Focus on sections I-III.) |
| L3 | Portraying Policy Problems - The Art of Framing in Many Languages | Prof. Weigel |
Lecture Slides (PDF) Stone, Deborah. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. Chapters 6-10. Wilber, Del Quentin. “Newly Banned Items Often Fly Past Airport Screeners.” Washington Post, September 13, 2006. |
| R1 | Victim’s Compensation Fund Case Study | ||
| L4 | Policy Strategy and Instruments | Prof. Weigel |
Lecture Slides (PDF) Stone, Deborah. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. Chapters 11-15. |
| L5 | Current Issues in Technology and Policy: Environmental Policy Challenges I | Guest - Prof. Dave Marks |
Pacala, S., and R. Socolow. “Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem For The Next 50 Years with Current Technologies.” Science 305, no. 5686 (August 13, 2004): 968 - 972. Socolow, R., R. Hotinski, J. Greenblatt, and S. Pacala. “Solving the Climate Problem: Technologies for Curbing CO2 Emissions.” Environment 46, no. 10 (2004): 8-19. Optional (but highly useful): The entire issue of Scientific American, September 2006. |
| R2 | Discussion of Stone Through the News: Equity and Efficiency | ||
| L6 | Class Projects Update: Teams, Project Organization, and NRC Reports | Prof. Weigel | Review/skim at least three different reports of your choice on different topics from the NRC Web site. |
| R3 | Discussion of Stone Through the News: Security and Liberty | ||
| L7 | Current Issues in Technology and Policy: Environmental Policy Challenges II | Guest - Prof. Dave Marks | |
| L8 | Government Policy and Technology I - History in the U.S. | Guest - Prof. David Mindell |
Dupree, A. Hunter. Science and the Federal Government. Introduction and chapter 14, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. ISBN: 0801833817. Brooks, Harvey. “The Evolution of U.S. Science Policy.” In Technology, R&D, and the Economy. Edited by B. Smith and C. Barfield. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1995. ISBN: 0815779852. Bush, Vannevar. “Science–The Endless Frontier.” Report to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, July 1945. |
| R4 | Case Study - London Congestion Pricing | ||
| L9 | Government Policy and Technology II - International | Prof. Weigel |
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB), National Research Council. “The Organization of Federal Support, A Historical Review.” Chapter 4 in Funding a Revolution: Government Support for Computing Research. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 1999. ISBN: 0309062780. Nelson, Richard, ed. National Innovation Systems. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN: 0195076176. |
| R5 | Case Study - KIDSNET | ||
| L10 | Challenger Case Study | Guest - Prof. Daniel Hastings |
The Challenger Disaster (PDF) (Courtesy of Prof. Daniel Hastings. Used with permission.) Vaughan, D. The Challenger Launch Decision. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1997, chapters 1, 2, and 8. ISBN: 0226851761. Tufte, Edward. Visual and Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Making Decisions. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 1997. ISBN: 0961392134. |
| L11 | Systems Thinking: Origins and Why It Matters To Policy | Prof. Roos |
Lecture Slides (PDF) Cronon, William. “Pricing the Future: Grain.” In Nature’s Metropolis. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co, Inc, 1992. ISBN: 0393308731. Hughes, Thomas P. Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975, chapter 1. ISBN: 0801846145. Optional
Hughes, Thomas P. Rescuing Prometheus. New York, NY: Knopf, 2000, chapter 6. ISBN: 0679739386. Rhodes, Donna, and Daniel Hastings. “The Case for Evolving Systems Engineering as a Field within Engineering Systems.” Paper presented at MIT Engineering Systems Symposium, March 2004. (PDF) |
| R6 | Understanding Systems Thinking | ||
| L12 | Policy Analysis I | Prof. Weigel |
Lecture Slides (PDF) Starling, Grover. Strategies for Policy Making. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1988, chapters 1, 7, and 8. ISBN: 0534108466. Patton, Carl V., and David S. Sawicki. Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning. East Rutherford, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993, pp. 168-176. ISBN: 013060948X. |
| L13 | Globalization Impacts: Government - Industry Interactions | Guest - Prof. Suzanne Berger | Berger, Suzanne. How We Compete. New York, NY: Doubleday, 2005, parts one and two. ISBN: 0385513593. |
| L14 | Policy Analysis II | Prof. Weigel |
Lecture Slides (PDF) Starling, Grover. Strategies for Policy Making. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1988, chapter 9. ISBN: 0534108466. Fischer, Frank. Reframing Public Policy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003, chapter 9. ISBN: 019924264X. Mazmanian, D. A., and P. A. Sabatier. Implementation and Public Policy. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc, 1989, chapter 2. ISBN: 0819175269. OptionalAverch, Harvey. Private Markets and Public Intervention. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990, chapters 2 and 3. ISBN: 082293647X. |
| L15 | Globalization Impacts: Supply Chains | Guest - Prof. Yoshi Sheffi |
 Sheffi, Yoshi. The Resilient Enterprise. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005, chapters 1-5. ISBN: 0262195372.
|
| L16 | Globalization Impacts: Globalization and the Automotive Sector | Prof. Roos |
Lecture Slides (PDF) Womack, J. P., D. T. Jones, and D. Roos. The Machine That Changed The World: The Story of Lean Production. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2007, chapters 1-4. ISBN: 0743299795. |
| L17 | Class Projects Update | All | Lecture Slides (PDF) |
| L18 | Policy Analysis III | Prof. Weigel |
Heywood, J. B. Testimony presented at U.S. House of Representatives’ Science Committee, Subcommittees on Energy and Research joint hearing on “Fueling the Future: On the Road to the Hydrogen Economy,” Wednesday, July 20, 2005. (PDF) Heywood, J. B., and Malcolm A. Weiss. “New Vehicle Technologies: How Soon Can They Make a Difference?” MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, March 2005. (PDF) ———. “A Multipronged Approach to Curbing Gasoline Use.” MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, June 2004. (PDF) Weiss, Malcom A., and Andreas Schafer. “Vehicles and Fuels for 2020: Assessing the Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicle.” MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, March 2003. (PDF) |
| L19 | Focus Area: Policy Perspectives on Transportation | Guest - Bob Skinner |
Lecture Slides (PDF) Transportation Research Board. “Future Flight: A Review of the Small Aircraft Transportation System Concept.” TRB Special Report 263, 2002. (PDF - 2.6 MB) ———. “Does the Built Environment Influence Physical Activity? Examining the Evidence.” TRB Special Report 282, 2005. (PDF - 1.5 MB) ———. The Fuel Tax and Alternatives for Transportation Funding. TRB Special Report 285, 2006. (PDF - 1.1 MB) Students should read the executive summaries of each of the TRB reports and browse through the bodies of the report to get a sense of how issues were framed by the authoring committees and the kinds of evidence and analysis considered. |
| L20 | Focus Area: The Big Dig - Policy Implications and Lessons | Guest - Fred Salvucci | Altshuler, A. A., and D. E. Luberoff. “The New Politics of Highways.” In Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003. ISBN: 0815701292. |
| L21 | No Class; Project Work Time | ||
| L22 | Current Issues in Technology and Policy: IT and Privacy | Guest - Frank Field |
Kaplan, Carl S. “Kafkaesque? Big Brother? Finding the Right Literary Metaphor for Net Privacy.” The New York Times, February 2, 2001. Liptak, Adam. “Expunged Criminal Records Live to Tell Tales.” The New York Times, October 17, 2006. Black, Jason, Kieran Downes, Frank Field, Aleksandra Mozdzanowska, and Katherine Steel. “The Metaphors of Emerging Technologies: Unpacking the disconnects between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ in the world of ‘online shopping’.” Conference paper preprint, 9th International Conference on Technology Policy and Innovation, Santorini, Greece, June 2006. SupplementsTurow, Joseph. “Have They Got A Deal For You: It’s Suspiciously Cozy in the Cybermarket.” The Washington Post, June 19, 2005, p. B01. ———. “Americans and Online Privacy: The System Is Broken.” Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania, June 2003. (PDF - 1.6MB) O’Harrow, Robert, Jr. “In Age of Security, Firm Mines Wealth Of Personal Data.” The Washington Post, January 20, 2005, p. A01. (Off-topic, but it may be of interest; O’Harrow’s award-winning series of articles and supporting information is hosted at the Washington Post’s site: “The High Price of Homeland Security”). Turow, Joseph, Lauren Feldman, and Kimberly Meltzer. “Open To Exploitation: American Shoppers Online and Offline.” Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania, June 2005. (PDF - 2.6 MB) |
| L23 | Current Issues in Technology and Policy: The Role of Standards In Technology And Policy | Guest - Dr. William Jeffrey, Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) | Starling, Grover. Strategies for Policy Making. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1988, chapters 1 and 2. ISBN: 0534108466. |
| L24 | Final Project Presentations | Students | |
| L25 | Final Project Presentations (cont.) | Students | |
| L26 | Policy Principles: Discussion and Reflection | Prof. Weigel | |
| L27 | Conclusion and Wrap-up | All |
