MBA Course Auction
Allocating Resources by Empowering Students
Designed to let student preference determine seat allocation in popular electives, Wharton's award-winning course auction empowers students and streamlines the course registration process.
Using market principles, Wharton's web-based Course Auction application enables students to bid on, and even resell, places in elective courses through a 10-round sealed-bid auction. In elective courses where the demand exceeds the supply, the auction is designed allocate the seats efficiently and equitably. The auction gives students control over what would otherwise be a random process by giving them the ability to determine the distribution of resources based on their allocation of auction points.
Originally designed to determine the enrollment in Wharton MBA elective courses, Wharton's Auction is now used to fairly allocate participation in a number of popular activities, including MBA Career Treks and Wharton Leadership Ventures.
Designed by Wharton faculty and built by Wharton Computing, the MBA Course Auction provides:
- A rich application interface built using Adobe Flex
- An extensive research section with course evaluations, student assessments, and historical Auction data
- Integration with Wharton's SPIKE student intranet
Technical Platform
Software:
- Adobe Flex
- Adobe ColdFusion
- Microsoft SQL Server
Hardware:
- Virtualized load-balanced cluster on IBM BladeCenter servers
- IBM TotalStorage DS4100 storage area network
Auction Recognition
Awards
Press
- 2008 Feb 15: The Chronicle of Higher Education, "Class Warfare: When Getting In Is the Hardest Part"
- 2006 May 10: ZDNet, Universal Desktop, "Rich Internet Application Case Study: Picking Classes at the Wharton School"
- 1999 Sep 09: New York Times, "Business School Puts Courses In Hands of an On-Line Market".