Informatics: Decision Support Systems

However, computer-based decision-support is not limited to providing advanced calculations. Computing resources may also be used in providing anonymity among a decision-team in order to minimise the effects of organisational politics and ‘group think’ on strategic decision-making.

Similar concepts have successfully been transferred and used as pedagogical tools during business simulations to test and evaluate management ability and to illustrate fundamentals of strategic decision-making. Furthermore, knowledge-management systems may be used to transfer know-how from one unit of an organisation to another by converting individual ‘silent´ knowledge to documented and stored information.

After a historical overview of the subject area in the beginning of the course, the course on Decision Support Systems acknowledges both the social and technical perspective of decision-support. Traditional courses on Decision Support Systems typically have a ‘technology push’-approach to decision-support, meaning that technology supersedes wants and needs of the customers and the market. A user-centred approach, on the other hand, makes it a priority to describe, understand and capture the ‘market pull’ side of decision-making. Consequently, if purposeful decision-support is of concern, an understanding of what is decision-making, and what enables and restricts businesses, markets and macro-environment are all key aspects to consider for any decision-support designer. The course readings cover aspects and frameworks of decision-making in a multitude of settings – not only business settings. Together this is referred to as the social and business-driving side of decision-making.

Given an understanding of the social business-side of decision-making, the focus is set to the technology-driven side of the decision-support. This section introduces terms and concepts like Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence, Group Decision Support Systems and data visualisation. One of the course modules introduces the participants to commercial decision-support software that is used to build specific decision-support systems for specific decision-making roles.

The theoretical section of the course is supported by lectures and assistance hours that provide perspective to the course readings. This means that lectures does not repeat course readings but rather illustrates course readings in order to enhance the learning outcomes set in the course.

A successful completion of the course enables the participants to recognise that useful decision-support is informed by an understanding of the organisational needs and wants and matching those needs with the technological opportunities inherent in the decision-supporting technologies. Finally, the course will assist the participants to produce a short paper that seeks to develop the ability to recognise and address practical concerns and phenomena relating to decision-making. Regular guest lectures further offer participants with opportunities of insights into solutions and challenges concerning the design of decision-support and Business Intelligence-applications.