Model World: On Academics, Applications, and Publications

An essay discussing letters to the editor and articles in OR journals that seem to have moved into a new area of concern (and complaint), tangentially related to the earlier issues of readability and applicability. This is what bothers these concerned citizens of OR: (1) academics are publishing papers of no value (except in gaining tenure) and (2) academics are not producing students who can solve real-world problems. The author wants to put things in perspective and see if it can be understood what is wrong and what appears to be wrong and correct the problems within the real world of pedagogy and OR practice.