;ogic model

This week I read about a "logic model" in policy planning. This has great similarities with the design method used in writing computer code more than 30 years ago(before the "structured analysis and design" methods of Yourdon arrived).

At first glance, the "logic model" as currently proposed, seemed be unnecessarily complex. It has INPUTS, ACTIVITIES, OUTPUTS, OUTCOMES.

The question I needed to answer, was whether it was an error to specify both Outputs and Outcomes? If this is unnecessary then it could be contrary to Occam's razor and hence an error.

Outcomes is said to be "benefits for stakeholders". I would prefer to say that an Outcome is an objective. More precisely, an objective can be stated as a constraint - that certain variables need to lie in a certain region. Hence we can see an Outcome as a state variables, or at least as a function of state variables.

So we say that Outcomes describe what the system is for. By stating Outcomes, we can define what the system does.


It is very exciting to know that people in an area that is currently largely removed from computers, are using this "logic model".

Ironically, around 1990 Walford recommended that written statements of policy be used in
(computer) system development.Walford's idea is very good - it appears to be equivalent to the "logic model" idea.

Using a "logic model" allows us to ask questions, e.g. why was the system requested?

It is noteworthy that the ideas appear to be copied, without acknowledgement, from the computer area.

It is also noteworthy that many computer ideas were copied, without acknowledgement, from the mathematics area. For example, the
word "model" in mathematics described what we could call an "object" or "abstract data structure" in computing. "Model" was an idea due to Tarski.

We already have the technology existing in the computer to implement such logic models in policy planning, as running systems. The amount of time needed to build a logic model could be hundreds of years work, or only a few seconds, depending on what infratructure has been developed already.
At present, there is little incentive to share infrastructure because then one may be paid nothing for one's work.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• logic
• model

[mirabileamavi]

favored and five star for the only tarski vid on youtube.