Even modifications restricted to the QRM curriculum are difficult, as courses grow to rely on each other's content and changes reverberate beyond the QRM area. As a result, the curriculum of the moment may be the result of hard-won victories in the past that are not easily surrendered even if obsolete. The sum of incremental advances in the technology of computing over the past decade can effect a qualitative change in quantitative reasoning, and in the communication of results to interested parties. The relative ease of performing computations on large data batches, conducting sensitivity tests, and displaying results graphically, can change planning practice. For example, it can alter planners relationship to clients, increasing public participation or alienating it further.
Some programs have current computers and software, and encourage intensive use by students.
Others have older technologies whose intricacies discourage student and faculty use. In either case, the QRM curriculum is partly driven by the availability of funds for acquiring the new technology, rather than by what planners believe to be its ideal role. Pedagogy Pedagogical views shape QRM curriculum design, with resulting variation in teaching approaches and emphases across planning programs. However, only precious few QRM, at the lower end of complexity and usefulness, can be acquired inductively at any but a superficial level. There may not be enough time within one course for dealing with a complex, real problem, and mastering a complex technique too.