What Is CDSOR?

Would you like to learn computational and analytical skills to provide insights for businesses to make better decisions? Would you like to develop decision support systems to help hospitals reduce emergency room waits, broadband operators to optimize their networks, or package delivery drivers to plan and manage distribution?

Today, most such activities rely on computational decision science and operations research. As the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) notes, operations research encompasses a wide range of problem-solving techniques and methods applied in the pursuit of improved decision-making and efficiency. These techniques and methods include simulations, mathematical optimization, data analysis, statistics, neural networks, expert systems, and decision analysis. Nearly all of these techniques involve the construction of mathematical models that attempt to describe the system. Decision science and operations research increasingly rely on algorithms and computer science. Operations researchers faced with a new problem must determine the most appropriate algorithm given the nature of the system, the goals of the organization, and the constraints on time and computing power.