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Home > MSI Degree >Incentive-Centered Design (ICD)
Incentive-Centered Design (ICD) Specialization
Incentive-centered design is the art of designing systems or institutions that align participants' (individual) incentives with overall system (social) goals.
Incentive-centered design should be a fundamental building block within the information field because a mismatch between individual interests and system goals is pervasive in the problems information professionals face. Careful attention to individual incentives can lead to vast improvements in information systems and institutions.
Incentive-centered design is inherently interdisciplinary. Game-theory models are the starting point for analyzing strategic interactions, but we take a broad view of individual motivations for strategic behavior, drawing on economic, psychological, and sociological theories. We also draw on computer science for the engineering of systems.
After completing this specialization, you will be able to analyze the motivations of participants in interaction environments, recognize opportunities to use a variety of mechanisms that create tangible and intangible incentives and rewards, and participate in the detailed design of particular applications of those technologies.
Graduates who develop a strong background in incentive-centered design can go on to career paths that include:
- E-commerce consultant
- Social networks engineer
- Product design specialist
- Auction designer/manager
- Fundraising systems developer
- System designer
- Incentive engineer
and more.
Specialization Requirements
In addition to the specialization requirements below, MSI students must meet all of the general requirements of the 48-credit MSI program, including core, distribution, cognate, and practical engagement requirements.
Required Course
Students completing the ICD specialization are required to take the following:
Approved ICD Courses
Students specializing in Incentive-Centered Design will need to take an additional 10.5 credits from within the following set of classes.
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SI 522: Special Topics: STIET Seminar
(1.5 credits)
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SI 562: Microeconomics for Information Professionals
(1.5 credits)
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SI 583: Recommender Systems
(1.5 credits)
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SI 646: Information Economics
(1.5 credits)
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SI 652: Electronic Commerce
(3 credits)
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SI 679: Aggregation and Prediction Markets
(1.5 credits)
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SI 680: Incentive-Centered Design: Contracting and Signaling
(1.5 credits)
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SI 683: Reputation Systems
(1.5 credits)
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SI 686: Public Goods
(1.5 credits)
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SI 687: Matching Mechanisms
(1.5 credits)
STIET Seminar
ICD students are encouraged to attend the STIET Seminar on Thursdays, 4 - 5:30 p.m. When there is an external speaker -- approximately six times per semester -- there is also a pre-seminar from 3 - 4 p.m.
STIET is the Socio-Technical Infrastructure for Electronic Transactions Fellowship Program, an interdepartmental doctoral program led by SI.
For fall 2008 only, students can opt to sign up for an independent study with Professor Yan Chen in order to receive 1.5 academic credits for
participating in the STIET Seminar and pre-seminar and writing a related paper. To request independent study credit for STIET for fall
2008, e-mail yanchen@umich.edu. Starting winter 2009, we expect to have a for-credit course related to the STIET Seminar. In either case, these credits can count towards the ICD specialization.
Research
Examples of current or recent ICD projects at SI include the following:
- attention bonds to discourage spam
- motivating contribution to the public good in on-line communities
- design of computer-assisted market mechanisms
- economic design for scholarly publishing
- economic design of the Internet
- incentives for data producers to create archive-ready data sets
- incentives for scientific equipment sharing
- reputation systems
Faculty
These SI faculty members have research and academic interests in the area of Incentive-Centered Design.
The faculty coordinator for the ICD specialization is Associate Professor Yan Chen.
Other MSI Specializations
Incentive-Centered Design is one of nine specializations within the Master of Science in Information program at the School of Information. For information about the other MSI specializations, visit their respective links:
Program requirements on this page are current for the 2008-2009 academic year.
Last updated: Dec 09, 2008
Home > MSI Degree >Incentive-Centered Design (ICD)
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"Our main goal is design: discovering and developing principles and methods for creating or improving information and communication systems. Our distinguishing hallmark is that we treat human motivation and responsiveness to incentives as central to the design problems and their solutions."
Jeffrey MacKie-Mason
Arthur W. Burks Collegiate Professor of Information and Computer Science; Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
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