Decision Support Systems (DSS) Are Term Paper

Useful DSS will challenge and eventually change decision makers. By contrast, management information systems (MIS) provide output but no real impetus for change in the person receiving it. Interacting with DSS will provide to be new and challenging for most decision makers and will provide new perspective on the decision making process that are attractive and understandable yet innovative. By furnishing a new way to see problems and opportunities DSS eventually change the users decision-making process and, along with it, the user.

Decision Support systems are designed to help support decisions involving complex problems that are formulated as semi-structured. Because such problems remain resistant to complete computerization, a solution per se is not the goal of DSS; instead they support the decision process that leads to a solution.

Decision support systems may be constructed to support one time decisions, those that are frequent or those that occur routinely.The type of problem or opportunity best address through use of DSS is both that ultimately requires human judgment either because humans feel it is inappropriate to relinquish their judgment or because the problem cannot be fully automated and is complex enough to benefit from the time savings to be gained through partial automation. Medical decisions involving differential diagnosis are a good example of such problems.

A decision support system is typically designed for either a particular decisions maker or group of decision makers. This high degree of individualization allows the system designer to customize important system features to adapt to the type of representations and interface that the user understands best. Web sites can also effectively include DSS, specific to the site users. For instances, sites devoted to online testing for graduate schools may offer.....