Discuss the different categories of Decision Support Systems giving practical examples.

(25) According to Keen and Scott Morton (1978), the concept of decision support has evolved from two main areas of research: the theoretical studies of organizational decision making done at the Carnegie Institute of Technology during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the technical work on interactive computer systems, mainly carried out at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1960s. Studies on DSS(Decision Support Systems) development conducted during the last 15 years have identified more than 30 different approaches to the design and construction of decision support methods and systems. Interestingly enough, none of these approaches predominate and the various DSS development processes usually remain very distinct and project-specific. So there is no formally accepted way of categorizing Decision making system but I am going to explore the various ways that are used to classify DSS by different authors. According the Oxford Concise Dictionary the synonyms of category are grouping, taxonomy, type and class so we are going to look at the different groupings, and classes of decision support systems having particular shared characteristics. According to Power(2002) using mode of assistance as criteria of categorizing DSS. Mode of assistance refers to the method or means by which decision makers are assisted in order for them to make their decisions more effectively by the system.For example communication can be the means in which a DSS enhances the users decision making ability.The types of DSS that are found under this category or criterion are: Communication Driven DSS A communication-driven DSS uses network and comminication technologies to faciliate collaboartion on decision making.This type of DSS enhance a user or groups decision making capability by enabling sharing communication between group of people or individuals. A good example of such a DSS is Blackboard Collaborate which is a web conferencing system that allows a moderator to control discussions being held with participants around the world who can also participate in the discussion by means of video,voice,chat messages to make comments and

interjections and information sharing by means of slide presentations which all aid for more effective decision making. Data Driven DSS A data-driven DSS or data-oriented DSS emphasizes access to and manipulation of a time series of internal company data and, sometimes, external data. All this data is made available to the decision makers for the purpose of analysis,storage and querying. A good example of such a system is ASYCUDA a customs and goods clearance developed by UNCTAD(United Nations Conference on Trade And Development) for global adoption and standardization of trade and it has been recently adopted by ZIMRA to curb revenue losses from fraudulent smuggling of goods under the auspices of inter-country transportation because data on the source and destination of goods would be readily available to all ports of entry. Document Driven DSS Supports systems that are designed to connect multiple documents Such DSS uses storage and processing technologies for document retrieval and analysis. It manages, retrieves and manipulates unstructured information in a variety of electronic formats. A good example of document driven DSS is the Google Search engine which is a DSS that presents a set of results that match the search criteria specified by the user. All these results are comprised of different types of documents found on the web which could be web hypertext documents, images and other types of documents, that is why one can even specify what type of search he or she wants to perform whether a Web, Map or Image search. Knowledge Driven DSS These are systems designed to recommend activities and solutions by analyzing large volumes of data from a knowledge base then after analysis they give recommendations based on known patterns. This is basically an Artificial intelligence system used to help decision makers make the right decision. MYCIN is a medical rule based reasoning DSS program which helps physicians diagnose blood disease using the acceptable levels and limits of blood composition compounds to decide whether a patient is normal or infected.

Model Driven DSS These incorporate the ability to manipulate data and generate statistical and financial or even simulation models to decision makers. Model-driven DSS use data and parameters provided by users to assist decision makers in analyzing a situation; they are not necessarily data intensive. A good example of model driven DSS is a GPS navigation system that prompts user of their location and destination and thereby plot the optimum travel route from current location to destination using the recent maps as their model. Web-Based DSS The development of this type of DSS has been a result of recent improvements in internet connectivity and it represents all DSS that run via a web browser interface. A search engine DSS like Google Search is still another DSS that fits in both the document driven and web-based DSS categories Spreadsheet based DSS This type of DSS is driven both by data as well as models built using spreadsheets that make it easy to analyse large volumes of data. A simple example is the Microsoft Excel documents used by lecturers to determine the total coursework marks attained by students from all the assignments and test written during the course of the semester. The decision would be Pass or Fail.

Relationship is also used as criterion to categorise DSS.Under this class DSS are differentiated based the level of interaction that exists between the decision makers and the system. In other words how the decision makers trust or adhere to the judgments and suggestions generated by the systems. Passive DSS These systems aid the decision makers in decision making process in many ways but they are unable to produce or generate explicit or clear suggestions and solutions. A good example is the Windows based indexing and search engines found on Windows based operating systems which

upon you searching using a certain set of criterion returns a set of results based on the first one to be found by location or alphabetic order without clearly recommending to the user the files of folders he or she should select. Active DSS Aids decision makers in the in one or more ways that passive DSS do but they are also able produce clear suggestions and solutions as to what decision is to be made. The Google Search engine is a good example of such a search engine whereby when a search is conducted using user specified criteria, Google using a results ranking algorithm suggests to the user topics or documents top results mainly because they have the highest number of hits/views and they are the probably the most relevant documents that match his or her criteria. Co-operative DSS These systems use an iterative decision making and refining process whereby they allow decision makers to modify suggestion produced by the DSS before sending them back to the system for refinement until consolidated decision suggestions are generated.

Scope can also be used as criteria for the classification and categorising of DSS.Scope refers to the extent of the area or subject matter that the DSS deals with or to which it is relevant. Under this criterion we have the following: Enterprise Wide DSS These are DSS systems that are usually linked to data warehouses to offer decision making support to managers and employees at all levels of the organization hierarchy. These are typically general use systems that can perform a wide variety of functions. In a banking environment a bank loan officer may use the same transaction processing system used by bank tellers for giving out and depositing money to determine whether a client as a fit credit rating to receive a loan.

Desktop DSS These are much smaller applications to be on desktop PC while these systems may well be linked to a data warehouse or other large volumes of data while limited in scope. Those are the three main categories that are used to classify DSS but according to other authors DSS could also be categorized as follows: Alter(1980) suggests that can be based on the types of decisions they support (Support Based DSS) under this classification he suggest that there is: Data-based DSS and Model based DSS that support either structured, semi-structured and unstructured decisions. He also suggests that data based DSS are most suitable for unstructured problems whilst model based DSS are suitable for structured problems as shown by the diagram below:

Data Based Decision Support System

Structured Semi-structure Unstructured

Model Based Decision Support System

Examples of data-based and model based DSS have been already explored in earlier parts of this discussion.

The Nature of the decision situation was also suggested by (Donovan & Madnick 1977) as a means of categorizing DSS. This class is comprised of: Institutional DSS These are DSS used by more than one person and they are used regularly and suggestions or solutions are sometimes based on organizational culture. For example the MSU e-learning was created around MSU credit culture whereby if a student passes all the necessary core modules with minimum credits the system indicates the decision for the student to proceed. Ad Hoc DSS These are one of a kind DSS used by single individuals. For example small application that can be used on a mobile phone used to tell someone what kind of clothes to wear based on the weather and other kinds of data. According to Keen (1980) there are also user based categories that are just classifications based around how many users use a DSS. There are three types of DSS under this category: Individual: Used by single users for personal decision making and improving personal efficiency. Multi Individual: Used by multiple users for personal decision making. Group: Used by multiple users for group decision making. Holsapple and Whinston(1996) also classify DSS into the following six frameworks: Textoriented DSS, Database-oriented DSS, Spreadsheet-oriented DSS, Solver-oriented DSS, Ruleoriented DSS, and Compound DSS. In conclusion I can say that there are several ways to classify DSS applications. Not every DSS fits neatly into one of the categories mentioned, but may be a mix of two or more categories and the criteria used differ from author to author but they all vary along the same lines.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Efraim Turban, Jay E. Aronson, Ting-Peng Liang (2008). Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems. p. 574

2. Power, D. J. (2002). Decision support systems: concepts and resources for managers. Westport, Conn., Quorum Books. 3. Holsapple, C.W., and A. B. Whinston. (1996). Decision Support Systems: A KnowledgeBased Approach. St. Paul: West Publishing. ISBN 0-324-03578-0

4. Keen, P. G. W. (1978). Decision support systems: an organizational perspective. Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley Pub. Co. ISBN 0-201-03667-3