university attractivness

[lara90]

Hi all
Am trying to draw a casual loop,
Let’s say that the problem is to increase the number of enrolled student, we have several attractiveness such as :
1-reduce fees
2-programs match customer needs
3-location
4-University promotion
5-quality of staff
6-Physical Facilities

I am studying the effect of these attractiveness on the number of student but i didn’t know how to add them to the loop, i need some help..

attached casual loop
Thanks

[LAUJJL]

Start with the more important factor first and buil a model with only that factor.
Think about how the model should behave like to be credible and list all the reality checks concerned.
Build the RC in the model and then the model that conforms to the reality checks. See chapter 14 of the user guide.
Your model should have a level and no more than 6 or 7 auxiliaries rates and constants.
You cah then build additionnal RC that correspond to the list of validation tests joined.
Studying each test, there are about 17 of them is extremely helpful to understand your problem and how to formulate it.
Of course it takes a lot of time, but you get nothing with nothing.

For instance the fees. If you increase the fees, you get less students, but more money per student and eventually better staff, that will in return justify increased fees. Work quite a long time with that simple model, trying different structures corresponding to different set of reality checks and keep the one that seems the best.
Once the model is built, use it fully with the synthesim. Once you get familiarized with this simplistic model, think about the next factor to include, keeping the reality checks of the first version. Repeat the whole process adding between 4 to 10 additionnal variables or constants.

Regards.

JJ