Courses:

When you click the Amazon logo to the left of any citation and purchase the book (or other media) from Amazon.com, MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of this purchase and any other purchases you make during that visit. This will not increase the cost of your purchase. Links provided are to the US Amazon site, but you can also support OCW through Amazon sites in other regions. Learn more.

In this class, we will be using modeling software. Several excellent packages for system dynamics simulation are available commercially, including iThink®, from High Performance Systems, Powersim®, from Powersim Corporation, and Vensim®, from Ventana Systems. All are highly recommended. You may wish to learn more about these packages, as all are used in the business world, and expertise in them is increasingly sought by potential employers.

For further information, see the following resources:

iThink®: See the isee systems (formerly High Performance Systems, Inc.) web site.

Powersim®: See the Powersim Corporation web site.

Vensim®: See the Ventana Systems, Inc. web site.

In this course, we will be using the Vensim® Personal Learning Edition (Vensim®PLE) by Ventana Systems Inc. Vensim®PLE is free for academic use. Vensim®PLE is available for both Windows® and Macintosh®; models created with it are fully convertible across platforms. Vensim®PLE comes with on-line user's guide and help, and also a folder of demo models. Download Vensim® Personal Learning Edition.

NOTE: The CD-ROM that comes with the course textbook ( Sterman, J. Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World. Irwin/McGraw Hill, 2000. ISBN 0-07-238915-X) includes a version of Vensim®PLE. However, that version is now out of date. Be sure to download the current version from the Vensim® website above. All the Vensim® models on the text CD work with the new version.