Please note that these courses have been discontinued now.
Aston University (Birmingham, UK) provides two courses on Performance Assessment, targeted specifically to practitioners and doctoral students interested in quantitative methods for Performance Measurement. The two courses are part of the MSc on Operational Research and Performance Management but can also be taken on their own.
The two courses are:
BNM826 – Performance Measurement in Practice
The focus of this module is to introduce students to the concepts of efficiency and productivity and how these can be measured using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). In more more detail, the main objectives of this course are:
- To introduce the student to Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as a method of comparative performance measurement.
- To enable the student to identify the types of situations where DEA may be used.
- To enable the student to use DEA to carry out comparative efficiency assessments (the course uses PIM-DEA for the hands-on case studies).
- To enable the student to interpret the information on comparative performance derived from DEA assessments.
BNM825 – Advanced Performance and Measurement
The focus of the module is twofold; firstly, to present the most common econometric approaches for the measurement of efficiency and productivity and secondly to discuss the similarities and differences between the econometric approaches and Data Envelopment analysis, offering guidance with regards to the most appropriate methodological approach for the application at hand. In more detail, the main objectives of this course are:
- To provide an introduction to some of the basic principles of using econometric analysis to model a production or other transformation of inputs to outputs process.
- To introduce some of the econometric techniques that can be used in measuring efficiency and productivity, including Corrected Ordinary Least Squares (COLS) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA).
- To provide guidance on how to interpret the output of an efficiency/productivity analysis using econometric techniques.
- To provide hands-on experience on implementing an efficiency and productivity assessment using specialised software (the course uses STATA for the hands-on case studies).
- To discuss the comparative advantages and drawbacks of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and econometric methods in comparative performance measurement and to enable the student to critically assess results about a given set of units derived using these two alternative approaches
Each course is delivered in four blocks, each taking a full day, over a period of one month; each day, the material is delivered through a combination of lectures, practical exercises and hands-on case studies. The starting date is normally the beginning of January, but if there is sufficient demand, the courses could also be re-run over the summer period.
For additional information and details on fees, please contact:
Prof. Emmanuel Thanassoulis: e.thanassoulis@aston.ac.uk
Dr. Dimitris Giraleas: d.giraleas1@aston.ac.uk
