The Statecraft IR Simulation is a great addition to an Introduction to International Relations Course and covers over 50 topics along with the Essentials of International Relations Education Online textbooks.

Length of Simulation & Class Time

The IR Simulation runs for a default 7 to 10 weeks with each week being considered a “turn” (many instructors choose to run the sim for 12 or even 15 weeks, this is completely up to you and no extra charge to extend your simulation). 

Note: A rule of thumb when scheduling turns is that each one requires about 1.5 to 3 hours of work from the students. 

Turn 0 is a Tutorial week for students to establish a basic understanding of the simulation and set up their countries. The sim runs live 24/7 which allows for maximum convenience for both instructors and students to cut deals and make decisions on their own time. We recommend establishing a 7 day per Turn schedule and having at least one day per week where you encourage students to negotiate, hold international negotiations, and even make speeches defending their countries’ actions on various global issues.  

Note: We recommend not telling your class how many Turns the simulation will last as students can act unrealistically and unpredictably when they know they are on the final turn. 

Alternative Schedule Formats

Tapered turn schedules: If you want to run the full simulation within 4 weeks you can use the tapered turn schedule model by decreasing the length of each turn by one day until you have just two days per turn. It is recommended to contact support at [email protected] for assistance and guidance on this setup. This great for summer, winter, or shorteneded semesters!

One day sim: If you want to run the simulation in one day you only need 30 minutes between turns. In a format like this you would schedule an all day play through with students on a saturday or sunday from 8 AM to 5 PM with a lunch break. It is recommended to contact support at [email protected] for assistance and guidance on this setup

What Happens During a Turn

The simulation automatically groups students into countries based on the Foreign Policy Attitude Survey they take during the signup process. During Turn 0 students vote for their President, name their country and cities, and choose their government type and attributes. 

Every week students are given a checklist and walkthroughs of their screen to guide them in achieving their goals and interacting with other countries. At the beginning of each Turn, students receive news messages with updates on major events and situations unfolding in their simulation. Instructors can also find these under “News” on the top of the instructor dashboard. 

From here they will start making decisions about trade, country development, domestic politics, economics, the environment, and national security. All of their choices are cancellable until the turn ends. Once the turn ends the simulation will calculate the impact of all student choices and start the next turn with new world conditions and unfolding sim events.

Suggested Base Knowledge of Students

No base knowledge is required, however, to maximize the learning experience for students, we recommend the simulation start after covering the basics of the course for at least a few weeks. Since the sim normally runs for 7-10 weeks, earlier course concepts may help in cementing actions within the sim.

The Statecraft IR Simulation is a great addition to an Introduction to International Relations Course and covers over 50 topics along with the essentials of International Relations Online textbooks.

Class Assignments

Many instructors get creative with how they connect classroom assignments to the simulation. These may be a good fit for your class:

• Memos: Instructors can provide students with a list of memo prompts that help students tie their simulation experience to course topics.
• Debrief Presentation: This is a guided debrief that helps students reflect on the key moments that unfolded throughout the simulation. This allows them to “reveal their cards” and openly explain their perspectives and actions from a 360 degree perspective. It is a great opportunity to encourage students to use their memos as historical references in creating a comprehensive presentation that they give to the rest of the class. Some classes have formalized this presentation and made it public to a larger audience. Watch students from The Çağ University in Turkey present their debrief to an auditorium of people!
• Debrief Paper Assignments: A paper to go along with the Debriefing Presentation that goes more in depth on how the debrief topic unfolded during the simulation. 

Student Engagement Tracking

To keep track of students decisions, there are multiple tools for instructors to utilize:

• The toggle option at top left of the map gives instructors a visual display of countries’ international attitudes and actions involving trade, diplomacy, conflict, and country development. The map is populated with country development rings surrounding capital cities along with colored arrows that indicate an array of collaborative and aggressive actions. Instructors can click on them to “drill down” for specific details about each action and country interaction. 
• Weekly emails go straight to the instructor inbox and give an overview of sim events, country attitudes and general actions, and a students’ engagement report.
• Reading at least one memo from each country during each week can be a great way to understand how students perceive what is happening and how they currently feel about other countries and simulation events. You can even change the memo topic for each week based on the things you would like to better understand from the student perspective
• Instructors can also log into each students’ dashboard and read their messages to see which peers a student may be interacting with.

Grading

The following grading criteria is a basic recommendation and can be customized to fit your classroom needs. 

• 5% – Simulation Performance: Students’ simulation performance score is based on the accumulation of points through the achievement of collective goals, competitive goals, and the best average Quality of Life scores. 
• 5% – Role Research Assignment: Students research the roles and submit an assignment that include their role including description, duties, why they are interested in each role, and a historical example 
• 10% – Simulation Participation: Students are prompted to take two Manual quizzes during Turn 0 and Turn 1 which can be used as part of the participation grade. Students can connect the course materials more meaningfully to their class by writing weekly memos. Students are also prompted to rate the level of influence of exceptional peers in the simulation. You can add this Sim Participation, Sim Performance, or consider giving it as extra credit for anyone who receives it. 
• 15% to 30% – Paper or Debriefing Presentation: The paper or debriefing presentation requires you to integrate your simulation experience with a variety of course concepts. 
• 10% – 25% – Debriefing Paper – a paper that accompanies the debriefing presentation over the same topic. Students turn in their paper after they debrief the class on their chosen topic.