2008 Survey Responses 41
1. What do you consider to be your primary discipline?
Answered “Other” on Survey
2008 Survey Responses 41
1. Test and Evaluation
2. Policy analysis
3. Flying
4. Statistics
5. Economics & Finance
6. Program Management
7. Analytical Staff Management
8. operations and concept of operations development
9. Artificial Intelligence
10. human factors engineering
11. Test and Evaluation
12. Air Force Operations - Navigator
13. decision analysis
14. Intelligence
15. Systems Analysis Systems Engineering
16. Military Sciences
17. Flight Test
18. Operations Research/Social Sciences
19. Experimental Psychology assisting Army Medical Research in Psychiatry
20. Cost Estimating
21. History
22. Operations Management
23. Modeling & Simulation
24. Business management (formerly ops research!)
25. safety
26. Planning
27. Intelligence
2008 Survey Responses 41
2. What is your current (or most recent) role with analysis?
Answered “Other” on Survey
2008 Survey Responses 41
1. Teaching
2. aircraft conceptual design
3. researcher
4. both a leader/manager of analysts and a user of analysis
5. Programmatic oversight of Analysis effort on a larger R&C contract
6. SME
7. Director, Arms Control Program at Unit of Illinois
8. Complex Acquisition Program MS&A Integration
9. Army Senior Fellow
10. Mentor and consultant of analysts - Chief Scientist role
11. Developer of Simulations used by analysts
12. Software developer of analysis tools
13. All of the above
14. oversight of analysis
15. Educator
16. Very minimal. Am a double MS engineer, but am thrown in History office.
17. Academic researcher
18. Historian thereof
19. research scientist transferring technology to operations
20. education
21. Developer of Tools
22. Trainer of analysts
23. Educator
24. Teacher
25. Instructor of analysts
26. Professor and researcher
27. Professor
28. Supervisor of Analysis
29. For me it is a combination of being an analyst and user of analyses from others.
30. MORS Staff
2008 Survey Responses 41
3. How long have you been in this role?
Review Bar Chart
4. What is your Gender?
Review Bar Chart
5. What is your age?
30 and below / 831-40 / 59
41-50 / 180
51-60 / 100
Over 61 / 43
6. What is your highest level of education?
Review Bar Chart
Evaluation of Current Offerings
1. Rate each product and benefit listed below by its importance to you. (Relates to Annual Symposium, Special Meetings/Workshops, Education Colloquium, Workshop Reports, MOR Journal, PHALANX, PHALANX Online, Books, Awards and Prizes, Mentoring Program, Web Site, Wiki, Communities of Practice, Tutorials, MORS Merchandise)
Answered “Other” on Survey
2008 Survey Responses 41
1. I have marked No opinion on areas I do not currently use. I believe that Awards and Prizes continue to be an area where there is room for constant attention.
2. Importance to me varies greatly by topic.
3. Some tutorials are very important, some aren't appropriate... it all depends on timing
4. If the symposium were conducted differently, this could be a much more valuable organization.
5. Phalanx needs a new direction. It reads like a college textbook. I would like to see more focus on working level analysis and present day analyst challenges. A double integral is just fancy adding, but grass roots problem solving would be awesome!
6. Ability to share information with my peers on my focus topics, as well as cross-domain topics is important.
7. PHALANX on-line has been inactive for a couple of years. Wiki is new and could become a great benefit.
8. Access to state-of-art methodologies, techniques, contribution to development pushing the boundaries of MOR, network with fellow OR professionals.
9. People have limited time to do things
10. N/A was answered for those things which I haven't tried.
11. Most years I attend and present several papers to MORSS, which I find very professionally beneficial. But this is my only interaction with MORS so I checked "no opinion" for other categories.
12. Am having difficulty using Wiki
13. I sure wish I had time for CoPs and tutorials...heck, I wish I had time to really read the journal.
14. My "no opinion" responses capture products/benefits that are potentially important to me but are not because I don't utilize them as I could due to lack of familiarity, my personality, available time, etc. Other responses reflect my actual assessment of the importance of the products/benefits.
15. Why is "Some What Important" to the right of "No Opinion?" This may have inadvertent impact upon your results...
16. N/A = not available because these things are for MORS members only, and I cannot afford to pay for this society until I find an employer that will help. Some of these things I have never heard of - Phalanx online? MORS Mentoring program? Why have I never heard?
17. I have not experienced some of these products so I offered no opinion.
18. As a foreigner I am not able to attend all meetings.
19. Limited involvement with MORS in recent years.
20. Fellowships and Student grants are needed
21. Choices are based on professional benefits to the company
22. I'm not familiar with the Mentoring Program, Wiki or Tutorials.
23. Do not get to take advantage of many of these due to work conflicts.
24. I could symposiums only if the TDY cost is paid. Now it is not paid. So, could not come.
25. MORS Merchandise isn't important but some people like it.
26. I frequently need information and education on a topic, and I like the tutorials and smaller workshops for this reason. You need to get the MORS Journal articles online, even if it is behind a secure page.
27. I have only attended the MORSS at this point and have little to no exposure to the other aspects of the survey. I found MORSS to be interesting, but of hit/miss value to increasing my knowledge of either my area of expertise or areas outside of it which are useful to understand. I tried to use it as a broadening experience, with mixed results.
28. While I was a member, I received one Phalanx and nothing more of any kind, so I don't have any opinions. I did call back then to inquire about my membership and nothing happened. This is the first correspondence I have received from you in several years....
29. I rated products "N/A" if I was unaware of their existence before this survey. Since I have been to the past two annual symposia, am a MORS member, and have been to the MORS website many times, I suspect that these products are not being marketed to the larger MORS membership. I would like to know what each of these products are. Please send description, link, or similar. Thanks!!
30. My focus is on the annual meetings and then special meetings
31. Personal interest is in the application of multi-disciplinary analytical tools to solve complex defense problems. No interest in arcane mathematical techniques, polemics against non quantitative analysis (or analysts), etc.
32. Would be great to have an active wiki
33. I am no longer interested in being a member of MORS
34. There is a large gap between research and operations particularly with emerging technology. It is through the meetings, reports, and education that this is shown to the warfighter for their initial opinion.
35. My only involvement with MORS is the annual symposium
36. I didn't know MORS had Wikis or COPs
37. I can't feel a part of MORS at all, because I am banned from meetings for lack of a security clearance. It seems profoundly counterproductive to lock scholars out of an academic conference and, by doing so, out of MORS.
38. Do we have a wiki or community of practice?
39. Most "no opinion" was the result of not being aware of the item or never having used the MORS item.
40. Many symposia, conferences offer a "Best Paper" within each working group. Friendly competition in each working group stimulates creativity, livens-up the discussions, and gives briefers an opportunity for an award that could be recognized in a performance report.
41. I work in the combating WMD area now. It has been a while since I have tuned in to MORS. At the time, MORS had stopped doing things in the nuclear deterrence area and CWMD had not yet arrived. I would renew my interest if you now had working groups in either of those areas.
42. Would like the journal bundled with registration. Would like the journal to be on-line and in hard copy as a purchase option.
43. I wish more of MORS was open to 5-Eyes nation attendance.
44. Workshops aren't held in my area
45. Journal should be tied to membership.
46. The special meetings and workshops are very important because they are a focused activity that is of great value in a specific area.
47. Need to get PHALANX and Journal in electronic format ASAP. Also, I'd like to be able to register for the meetings/symposium on-line like other organizations (SCEA, NDIA, SISO).
2008 Survey Responses 41
2. Rate each product and benefit for its quality. (Relates to Annual Symposium, Special Meetings/Workshops, Education Colloquium, Workshop Reports, MOR Journal, PHALANX, PHALANX Online, Books, Awards and Prizes, Mentoring Program, Web Site, Wiki, Communities of Practice, Tutorials, MORS Merchandise)
Answered “Other” on Survey
1. Special Meetings/Workshops vary by topic from excellent to needs improvement. For the most part they are good to excellent.
2. The wiki is potentially very important but I have troubles signing in.
3. Often only partial reports are provided from workshops. I think this is very poor. I am unaware of a number of the areas mentioned. For example I don't know what PHALANX is and I am not aware of your mentoring program.
4. Fix the symposium and everything else will increase in value.
5. For the items marked no opinion above, they are services or opportunities I have not had a chance to participate in or use.
6. Just getting started so I have not taken advantage of MORS offerings.
7. No opinion. Thinking about being a presenter in the future
8. Often only higher grade employees are permitted to attend workshops/training functions. Instead, please encourage leaders to send working class analysts and get them to pass the information out.
9. What is the difference between the no opinion and NA responses? I can think of several but you don't say so each respondent will use their own interpretation. How can you analyize the data. Not the professionalism in survey contraction that one would expect from OR professionals.
10. Wiki is new but holds great promise, would prefer to see effort go into making Wiki succeed.
11. Greater variety in MORS Merchandise would nice. Such as a nice MORS wind breaker or jacket. A sports coat or baseball cap.
12. Annual symposium and many workshops & tutorials are not open to foreign members like me. Hardly any new offerings in the books list & products list. Unable to get into CoP.
13. I have not seen the Phalanx Online.
14. Impossible to be involved in all of these items
15. Same as above.
16. The products/benefits that I have experience with are typically of high quality. The MOR Journal is probably of too high a quality for my present level of technical OR competence. I just don't have enough experience with most of the products/benefits to comment on their quality.
17. N/A=not available to non-members
18. Tutorial should go deeper into the subject matter.
19. Currently, the focus is not on the academic elite, but on the US contributions (sometimes applying methods that will hardly survive in the OR world) ... in OR, relevance and quality should come before citizenship
20. The scheduling at the annual symposium should be more of a school type format to enable people to move between presentations more easily. Most of the people I know do not want to sit in a working group the entire time or for one session. The particular presentations are more important. I recommend scheduling in 30 minute blocks. 20 minutes for the presentation, 5 minutes for questions, and 5 minutes for movement and set up for the next presentation. Additionally, an organization with OR in the title ought to have some sort of schedule optimization tool. I regularly spend several hours trying to plan out my schedule, which shouldn't have to happen.
21. Web site needs online processing for membership, purchase of literature, etc. Site also needs more info about MORS, e.g. what kind of an association is it? Public? Private? Does MORS have a charter, constitution or bylaws? If so, they should be posted on the web site.
22. Needs Improvement is more like "fair" or "very uneven." Some presentations were well done; others were obviously just combinations of canned briefings with little value to the audience.
23. I think of PHALANX as a list of who showed up to what meeting. There isn't much else to it.
24. Same as above
25. I rated products "N/A" if I have never personally used them, or if I was unaware of their existence prior to this survey.
26. I have actually not seen any MORS products to date.
27. MORS has been out of touch with the reality of the transition from the 20th Century Physical and Computational Age to the advance world of Machine Intelligence.
28. Nothing MORS does can be relevant until its meetings are open to Operations Research scholars, the incredibly vast majority of whom do not have security clearances.
29. have not attended the annual symposium; web site and wiki are in early stages of development so expect continued improvement; members need to participate more (MOR) to derive or provide benefits to others. JWL
30. See my earlier comment about no opinion grades.
31. Have not been to a meeting of any kind in several years. If MORS gets back into areas I am working in I will seriously look at becoming active.
32. Would enjoy the MORS journal more if it was a bit less technical
33. Historical book reprints unimportant. Current practice items (book, journals) important.