What kind of evidence is used to support policy decision making? This course will introduce students to the different sorts of data and evidence used by policy analysts, including census data, spatial data, surveys, interviews, focus groups, case studies, and policy experiments. Students will also be introduced to some basic modeling approaches used in policy analysis (statistical models, economic models, systems dynamics etc). Students will learn about the strengths and weaknesses of different types of information, and different analytical and visualization techniques that analysts use to incorporate evidence into their work.