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Please read the homework assignments carefully and follow the instructions. If there is something unclear, please ask the course organizers (or fellow students) to explain and clarify! NOTE: Write all your homework answers on your own user page.

Also add links to your homework answers in the table below. The evaluation of the homework exercises will be based on the answers found by following the links in the table. Students themselves are responsible for having the correct, complete and up-to-date links to homework answers. if you need help in adding the links to your homework answers to the table, please ask the course organizers (or fellow students) for advice. A convenient way to get help is to come to the exercise sessions.

Follow-up table

Please note

If your Homework says "OK" it means that the given homework is graded as "pass", i.e. at least 1 point. If you want to get better points, you should check and answer lecturers´ comments regarding that homework.
If there is no "OK" sign, you must revise your work according to the comments in order to make it acceptable.
Homework answers done in groups/pairs are found from only one place.
Add link to answers on your own user page if it is located on someone else's user page (do not copy the text on your own user page).

**Homeworks**
User	HW 1: Mikko Pohjola's thesis	HW 2: Basic skills of Opasnet	HW 3: Basic concepts of open assessment	HW 4: Draft of an assessment	HW 5: Climate policy decisions and actions	HW 6: Collaboration in climate policy assessment	HW 7: Structure of pages and objects and R code	HW 8: Structured discussion	HW 9: Developing a variable page	HW10: Evaluation of assessment	Seminars
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Questions and answers about the course

Q: Ask a question
A: Answer

Time-table for seminar presentations

Date	Time	Classroom	Presenters	Topic
To be filled.

Please comment here if you find any mistakes, missing information etc. in the above table or if you have any questions regarding it. You can also contact us by email, see Decision analysis and risk management 2015#Help and guidance.

Each presentation slot is 30 min including the talk (about 20 min) and discussion (10 min).

Homework 1: Mikko Pohjola's thesis

Read (or browse) Mikko's thesis (in heande, username and password needed) and provide brief answers to three (3) questions from the following question list. You are free to choose which questions to answer. Write your answers on your own Opasnet user page. Instructions on creating a user account and editing your own user page will be given on first lecture. In case of difficulties in wiki editing, write your answers on a separate document and copy them to your user page later. The questions and answers will be discussed on the second lecture (10 Jan). A sufficient length for each answers is a few sentences or bullet points. Please do not write lengthy essays, but instead try to identify and briefly describe the main points relevant in each question. The idea of this homework is not to find the right or correct answers, but instead to introduce the conceptual basis of this course to the students.

Questions:

What is the main purpose of environmental health assessment?
What is pragmatism?
What are the main differences between regulatory and academic assessment approaches? Give examples of each.
What are the main differences between traditional and novel assessment approaches? Give examples of each.
What are the main differences between open assessment and most other assessment approaches?
What is benefit-risk assessment?
What is impact assessment?
What different purposes are there for participation in assessment and/or decision making?
What are the dimensions of openness?
What relevant stakeholder roles are there in environmental health assessment and related decision making
What is effectiveness' in the context of environmental health assessment and related decision making?
What is the trialogical approach to knowledge creation and learning?
What is decision support?
What is a pragmatic knowledge service?
What is collaboration?
What are the properties of good assessment?
What is the role of modelling in assessment and policy making?
What parts does the framework for effective assessment and knowledge-based policy consist of?
What does it mean that the results of assessments can be considered intentional artifacts?

Homework 2: Basic skills of open policy practice

**Basic skills: Mark "yes" when you know how to do this.**
User	Understand terms Glossary#Terms in open assessment	Create a page and type	Upload a file and link it	Use headings, lists, bold, italic	Use internal and external links	Use templates	Create a prettytable	Create a t2b table	Create an rcode for answer	Create and store an ovariable based on t2b	Organise a discussion
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Homework 3: Basic concepts of open assessment

Task: Read the introductory pages listed below and write two questions that you think needs clarification on your own user page. The questions will be answered during the next lecture.

**Materials and examples for training in Opasnet and open assessment**
Help pages	Wiki editing • How to edit wikipages • Quick reference for wiki editing • Drawing graphs • Opasnet policies • Watching pages • Writing formulae • Word to Wiki • Wiki editing Advanced skills
Training assessment (examples of different objects)	Training assessment • Training exposure • Training health impact • Training costs • Climate change policies and health in Kuopio • Climate change policies in Kuopio
Methods and concepts	Assessment • Variable • Method • Question • Answer • Rationale • Attribute • Decision • Result • Object-oriented programming in Opasnet • Universal object • Study • Formula • OpasnetBaseUtils • Open assessment • PSSP
Terms with changed use	Scope • Definition • Result • Tool

Homework 4: Draft of an assessment

Note! Homework 3 answers will be used as materials in homework 10.

Task: With your pair, draft an assessment about the topic agreed on during the lecture. Write the draft assessment on either your or your partner's user page (and put a link to it on the other's user page). Copy the headings and explanations below to the page and use them as template. Choose your specific topic among these areas:
- Talvivaara mine or
- metal mining in general or
- climate change policies in cities.

Scope

⇤# : Update the structure! --Jouni (talk) 16:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Defines the purpose of the assessment: why is it done?

Question

A research question that the assessment attempts to answer.

Intended use and users

List of users that are supposed to need the assessment. Also, how do we expect them to use the information?

Participants

Who is needed to participate to make the assessment a well-balanced and well-informed work? Also, if specific reasons exists:

Scenarios

Decisions and decision options considered. Also, if scenarios (defined here as delibarate deviations from the truth) are used,

Analyses

What statistical or other analyses are needed to be able to produce results that are useful for making conclusions about the question?

Timing

When will the assessment take place?

Answer

Results

What are the results of the analysis?

Conclusion

What is the conclusion about the question based on the results obtained?

Rationale

Endpoints

What are the stakeholders that we should consider?
What are the endpoints that a stakeholder is interested in? How would the stakeholder summarise the endpoints to derive an overall preference ranking for outcomes of decision options? Think about this separately for each stakeholder.

Variables

What are the issues that should be looked at to be able to understand the outcomes of the decision options?
Typically, with health impact assessments:
- What emissions and exposures should be considered?
- What health endpoints should be considered?
- What exposure-response functions should be considered?
- What population subgroups should be considered?

Homework 5: Climate policy decisions and actions

Consider that you are given an assignment to assess the direct or indirect health impacts caused by a climate (adaptation) strategy or program. One of the first things in getting started with the assessment is to discuss, identify and explicate the decisions and options related to the assessment problem. In pairs choose one climate (adaptation) strategy/program from the material list below and identify and write out answers to the following questions based on the material. Use your own reasoning and knowledge or other sources (e.g. Google search) as complementary where the material is incomplete or inconclusive.

Write your answers on either group member's user page (other member adds a link to the answers on his/her user page).

Questions:

What are the aims/goals of the strategy/program, i.e. what are the desired impacts and outcomes striven for?
- Who are those that benefit if the aims/goals of the strategy/program are reached?
What are the actions that are needed/intended to take in order to progress towards the aims/goals?
- Who are those that actually realize these actions?
What are the decisions that are needed to make in order to enable/promote the actions?
- Who are the decision makers?
What direct or indirect health impacts, positive or negative, these decisions and actions (may) have?
- Where and how do these impacts take place, who are those that face these health impacts in practice?The community,the citizens,
- Are the health impacts big or small in relation to other impacts (e.g. economical, social, climate, other environmental, ...)?
- Do the intended policies result in win-win, win-lose, lose-win, or lose-lose situations with regard to health and other impacts?
Formulate a plausible and meaningful specific assessment question that takes account of (some of) the aspects considered in above questions.
Extra question: In what ways your answers do or do not represent "shared understanding"? (The climate program/strategy can be considered a compilation of contributions by many experts and attempting to reflect the views and needs of different decision makers and stakeholders).it conforms to the decision,aims and strategies.

Materials:

Homework 6: Collaboration in climate policy assessment

This exercise continues from homework 5. With the same pair, using the same material, and building on your homework 5 answers, identify and write out your answers to the following questions. Narrow your scrutiny down to e.g. one or two decisions/actions/goals if needed. Base your answers on the climate program/strategy paper you have chosen, but also apply your own reasoning, other DARM 2015 course materials etc., particularly on the second set of questions.

Write your answers on either group member's user page (other member adds a link to the answers on his/her user page).

Homework 6, part A: Questions about identifying roles and participation:

Who are the relevant participants of the assessment?
What roles the different participants (may) take in the assessment?
What kind of relevant knowledge they (may) have regarding the assessment?
What needs and aims do they represent in the assessment?

Homework 6, part B: Consider also the following questions about facilitating collaboration:

How could the relevant participants be involved in the assessment in an effective way?
How can the quality of an assessment be assured if anyone can participate?
How can you prevent malevolent contributions where the purpose is to vandalise the process?
How can you make the outcome converge to a conclusion, because all issues are uncertain and controversial?
How can you ensure that the outcomes are useful for the users?

Homework 6, part C: Prepare following tables from the climate programme of your selection. Instructions for table structures can be found at Training assessment.

Decisions table
Endpoints table

Homework 7: Structure of pages and objects and R code

The objective of this homework is that you learn in practice what different parts of a page are and how they are related to each other and to other pages. Especially, an objective is to understand the role of R code in this system. You should learn to identify key things from a code, but you are not expected to be able to write code or explain what it does in detail.

With your pair, select and reserve three pages (by adding your usernames beside the page link) from the list below. At least two of them have to contain t2b tables and R code. Go through the content by doing all of the key tasks below, if possible. Also look at the additional questions and answer at least some of them. Write your answers to the page by using the comment, defend (when things are OK), and attack (when things are not OK) buttons. If you can, improve the content or suggest tasks for improvement.

In addition, select three other pages from the list such that another pair has already done the work. Read the content and their comments, and agree or disagree with them. Try to improve the content further.

Key tasks

Check that the page has all subheadings that belong to the page type. Add, if missing.
Categorise the page to relevant categories.
Organise the content into the right subheadings. Especially, look what is data and what is result.
Check and update the Dependencies. Also check that the Answers in dependency pages are coherent with this page.
Make rcodes that a) creates the ovariable (under Calculations) and b) gets the latest ovariable and prints basic results (under Answer).
Test any existing code and report its functionalities on the page.
Write or update a summary (one paragraph in the very beginning explaining the main points of the text) on the page. If the content is too unclear to write a good summary, write down clarification questions to the moderator of that page.
If you have problems with any previous steps, describe them on the relevant point on the page.

Additional questions

Does the page have a correct page type?
Does the page have a question? Is it clear and unambiguous?
Does the page have an answer to the question? Does it actually give an answer to what is asked?
With variables, is the answer given as a link to a model run with calculated results? If yes,
- Does the model run have a clear result table?
- Does the model run have a clear result graph?
- Is it clear where the code that was used to run the results is?
In method pages: based on the guidance in the answer, is it possible to actually use the method in an assessment?
In method pages: What data is required to be able to use the method? Are the requirements listed under "Inputs"?
Are there data on the page that is needed to answer the question? Are it in machine-readable format (i.e., in t2b table or directly stored in the database)?
- Are the data under Rationale/Data subheading, (or in methods under Rationale/Inputs)?
Is there data or text that is NOT needed to justify the answer? Would that data be in better place on another page with a different question? What would that question be?
If the data is needed but is not used in the Answer, update it or suggest tasks to update it.
Are there external variables whose values need to be known to be able to estimate this object? If yes,
- Are these listed under Rationale/Dependencies?
- Are there equations (as text) for calculating this object based on the dependencies under Rationale/Formula (or Rationale/Calculations)
Is there an R code that implements the object?
- With variables, is the code under Rationale/Calculations?
- With methods, is the code under Answer?
- If there are dependencies and formula, does the code take them in to produce an ovariable?
- If there are data, does the code take them in to produce an ovariable?
- When you run the code, does it crash (i.e. produce an error message) before completion? When and why (use show code and error message to understand what's going on)?
- Are there several different codes on the page? Are their purposes clear?
- Does the page use other pages (objects) in calculations? Are these connections listed explicitly as links under the R code?
Does the page have an evaluation (edistymisluokitus) in either a separate box in the beginning, or in the metadata box?
Does the page have other subheadings (See also, References, Related files, Keywords)?
- Are there links to other related pages? Are relevant links missing?
Is the page categorised to relevant categories?
With encyclopedia pages: is the content detailed enough so that one or more variables or methods could be made based on it? Does such page(s) exist? Are these pages linked to each other?
Does the page explain its links to other pages? Is it clear how the page could be used as a part of an assessment?
Do you find other pages that actually have duplicate content? Is some content outdated (based on e.g. version history?)? Suggest how pages should be updated, deleted, or merged.
Do you find errors or mistakes on the page?
Is the text clear?
Write or update a summary (one paragraph in the very beginning explaining the main points of the text) on the page. If the content is too unclear to write a good summary, write down clarification questions to the moderator of that page.
Is the text properly referenced?
Are there discussions on the Talk page? If yes,
- Have they been linked to from the main page?
- Have the current resolutions been incorporated in the main page?

⇤# : The variable list must be updated! --Jouni (talk) 13:16, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

With R code

Without R code

Homework 8: Structured discussion

Main message:

Question:

What are the evaluation criteria for structured discussion (homework 8)?

Answer:

Evaluation of arguments:

Each argument is evaluated either A (very good), B (good), or C (irrelevant).
When you have written at least one A argument and at least three B arguments, you get grade 2.
When you have written at least four B arguments you get grade 1.5.
If you have written at least two B arguments you get grade 1.
Argument with C is a slight dis-merit and may affect borderline situations.
B argument is the default. A arguments differ from B arguments by having
- an important, unique aspect,
- good referencing, and/or
- clever use of hierarchy.

The objective of this homework is to teach how to organise existing written material into a structured discussion with a main statement and related arguments. In addition, students should learn to develop and use own arguments within a structured discussion.

The work is based on the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, which is currently under revision.

EIA directive (description) EIA directive text
Application and effectiveness of the EIA Directive
Proposed update to EIA directive
Finnish Government's memo to the Parliament about the revision (only in Finnish) NOTE! This links to a pdf file even if your browser does not recognise the file type. [1]
Environmental impact assessment directive Talk in Finnish (in Opasnet)
op_fi:Pneumokokki

Your task is to take the material listed above and initate and participate in structured discussions on page Talk:Environmental impact assessment directive according to the instructions on page Discussion. The original statements of the discussions are:

EIA directive works mostly very well.
The participation process required in the EIA directive is useless.
The current proposal does not leave enough flexibility to member states.
Accredited quality controllers will not improve the EIA process. On the contrary, they will reduce the transparency and thus possibilities to participate.

As facilitators, you should pay attention to get as many different opinions documented as possible. So, jump into a role of a stakeholder and try to think what he/she would say. Possible roles include:

A national authority giving environmental permissions.
A company applying for a permission for some activity and making an EIA about that.
A nature conservationist.
A local politician interested in both nature and local economy.
A citizen.

Note that you are allowed to:

Contradict your own arguments.
Update and improve statements if they are too vague or poorly written. However, be careful not to push the existing argumentation out of context. Instead of making large changes to a statement, start a new discussion with your new statement.
Add your signature to other people's arguments if you agree with them.
Clarify other people's arguments, if you do it carefully and do not change the meaning.
Copy arguments from one discussion to another, if they are relevant. But instead of copying large blocks, make references to the other discussion instead.

Homework 9: Develop a variable page

Instructions

Every pair selects a topic (or research question) and develops a variable page that asks that question and answers it.
The task is to find relevant information enough for a plausible answer, synthesise the information on the page, and quantitate it.
The answer will be an R code that gives the answer in a numeric form (graphs allowed) based on data that is on the page.
The data will be documented well enough to convince a critical reader that this is a good answer to the question.

Homework 10: Evaluation of assessment

In this exercise you are asked to look into and evaluate two (other than your own) homework 3 draft assessments. Find the assessments by the two users below you on the user/homework list on top of this page (the last on the list shall pick the first two users on the list and the second last on the list shall pick the last and the first user).

This exercise is intended to be done individually. However, co-operation between students is recommended.

First characterize the draft assessments according to the Knowledge-policy interaction and Dimensions of openness frameworks. The things to consider in the characterization are listed and explained in the tables A, B and C below.

Table A. Framework for characterizing the settings for health, safety and environmental assessments relevant to materials processing and related public policy.
Attribute	Example categories	Guiding questions
Impacts	Environment Health Other (what?)	Which impacts are addressed in assessment? Which impacts are most significant? Which impacts are most relevant for the intended use?
Causes	Production Consumption Transport Heating, Power production Everyday life	Which causes of impacts are recognized in assessment? Which causes of impacts are most significant? Which causes of impacts are most relevant for the intended use?
Problem owner	Policy maker Industry, Business Expert Consumer Public	Who has the interest, responsibility and/or means to assess the issue? Who is seen to actually conduct the assessment? Who has the interest, responsibility and/or power to make decisions and take actions upon the issue? Who are affected by the impacts?
Target	Policy maker Industry, Business Expert Consumer Public	Who are the intended users of assessment results? Who needs the assessment results? Who can make use of the assessment results?
Interaction (see tables B and C for advice)	Isolated Informing Participatory Joint Shared	How does assessment interact with the intended use of its results? How does assessment interact with other actors in its context? What is the degree of openness in assessment (and management)?

In order to identify the last point in table A, mode of interaction that the draft assessment builds on, characterize the dimensions of openness in the assessment explained in table B. The example categories for interaction mentioned in table A are explained in table C.

Table B. Dimensions of openness.
Dimension	Description
Scope of participation	Who are allowed to participate in the process?
Access to information	What information about the issue is made available to participants?
Timing of openness	When are participants invited or allowed to participate?
Scope of contribution	To which aspects of the issue are participants invited or allowed to contribute?
Impact of contribution	How much are participant contributions allowed to have influence on the outcomes? In other words, how much weight is given to participant contributions?

Table C. Explanations of categories of interaction within the knowledge-policy interaction framework.
Category	Explanation
Isolated	Assessment and use of assessment results are strictly separated. Results are provided to intended use, but users and stakeholders shall not interfere with making of the assessment.
Informing	Assessments are designed and conducted according to specified needs of intended use. Users and limited groups of stakeholders may have a minor role in providing information to assessment, but mainly serve as recipients of assessment results.
Participatory	Broader inclusion of participants is emphasized. Participation is, however, treated as an add-on alongside the actual processes of assessment and/or use of assessment results.
Joint	Involvement of and exchange of summary-level information among multiple actors in scoping, management, communication and follow-up of assessment. On the level of assessment practice, actions by different actors in different roles (assessor, manager, stakeholder) remain separate.
Shared	Different actors involved in assessment retain their roles and responsibilities, but engage in open collaboration upon determining assessment questions to address and finding answers to them as well as implementing them in practice.

Second, evaluate the assessment drafts according to the (slightly modified) Properties of good assessment framework. Base your evaluation on the characterization you have made. The things to consider in the evaluation are listed and explained in the table D below. For each attribute (i.e. an aspect to consider) give a numerical evaluation on a 1-5 scale (1 = poor, 5 = excellent). Also briefly write down your reasoning for each numerical evaluation. If something seems completely missing or not possible to evaluate, the numerical evaluation is 0 (also write down your reasoning why the particular aspect of the draft assessment deserves an evaluation of 0).

**Table D. A slightly modified version of the properties of good assessment framework.**
Category	Description	Guiding questions
Quality of content	Specificity, exactness and correctness of information. Correspondence between questions and answers.	How exact and specific are the ideas in the assessment? How completely does the (expected) answer address the assessment question? Are all important aspects addressed? Is there something unnecessary?
Applicability	Relevance: Correspondence between output and its intended use.	How well does the assessment address the intended needs of the users? Is the assessment question good in relation to the purpose of the assessment?
	Availability: Accessibility of the output to users in terms of e.g. time, location, extent of information, extent of users.	Is the information provided by the assessment (or would it be) available when, where and to whom is needed?
	Usability: Potential of the information in the output to generate understanding among its user(s) about the topic of assessment.	Would the intended users be able to understand what the assessment is about? Would the assessment be useful for them.
	Acceptability: Potential of the output being accepted by its users. Fundamentally a matter of its making and delivery, not its information content.	Would the assessment (both its expected results and the way the assessment planned to be made) be acceptable to the intended users.
Efficiency	Resource expenditure of producing the assessment output either in one assessment or in a series of assessments.	How much effort would be needed for making the assessment? Would it be worth spending the effort, considering the expected results and their applicability for the intended users? Would the assessment results be useful also in some other use?

Write your characterizations and evaluations on your own user page (DO NOT WRITE YOUR ANSWERS ON THIS PAGE!').

Evaluation of assessments is not only something to be done after an assessment has been completed. Instead, evaluation should be seen as a means to guide the making of assessments towards their aims while they are still happening. Therefore, the third task of this exercise is to formulate suggestions for developing/improving the draft assessment. Write your suggestions as comments/arguments to the user pages where the draft assessment descriptions are. Also point out where the information in the draft assessment is/was missing or insufficient for characterization or evaluation.

Homework 3 answers will be used as materials in this exercise and the deadline for homework 3 is Monday 4 February. It is recommended that you attempt to do this exercise only starting from 5 February.

Links to some examples of using the above mentioned evaluation frameworks:

Openness in participation, assessment, and policy making upon issues of environment and environmental health: a review of literature and recent project results (Dimensions of openness)
heande:Assessment of impacts to environment and health in influencing manufacturing and public policy (Knowledge-policy interaction. In heande, password needed)
heande:Evaluating effectiveness of open assessments on alternative biofuel sources (Dimensions of openness and Properties of good assessment. In heande, password needed)
op_fi:http://fi.opasnet.org/fi/Puijon_metsien_käyttösuunnitelman_päätöksenteko (All methods. In Finnish)

Seminar: Lessons learned

Each pair has a slot of 30 min to present their topic and discuss it. A recommendation is to aim at 15 min of presentation and 15 min of discussion. Each pair has a different topic, but each topic is about one of the homeworks. When preparing your presentation, focus on three things:

Describe the substantive content of your topic. What did you learn about it, what conclusions were made based on the material and the work?
Describe how the content relates to a wider perspective, namely an assessment or a decision process. What additional value did this topic bring? Did it change conclusions? Was it important in increasing understanding, or some other way?
How was it incorporated into the bigger picture? What methods were used to incorporate it? How were the methods used, and did the methods work for their purpose?