S.U.C.C.E.S.S.F.U.L.: a framework for designing discrete event simulation courses

Teaching a discrete event simulation (DES) course to undergraduates represents a challenge for instructors, particularly for the novice ones. There are many issues to address in designing the course, among which are the scope of the course, focus area of the course, technical depth of the course, and the role of a simulation packages in the course. How to introduce simulation has been a fundamental educational issue for a while. New teaching paradigms and the explosion tools available offers opportunities to design a course that is holistic. This paper presents a framework that enables a holistic design of a DES course such that students acquire a strong knowledge base regarding the use of DES in the real world. This paper also includes an example of how to use this framework.