BIT DSS and Expert System

Unit 1: Introduction to Management Support Systems and Decision Making (14 Hrs.)

Managers and decision making: Bounded rationality, muddling through; Factors in decision making: memory, bias, intuition, experience, models, analytics; Qualitative vs. quantitative decision making; Managerial decision making and information systems; Computerized decision support and supporting technologies; Group decision making, groupware; Supporting Business Decision Making: Introduction, History, Conceptual Perspective, Decision Support vs. Transaction Processing System, Categories of DSS Applications and Products, DSS Framework, Building Decision Support Systems; Gaining Competitive Advantage with Decision Support Systems: Introduction, Technology Trends, Gaining Competitive Advantage, Examples of Strategic DSS, Opportunities and IS Planning, DSS Benefits, Limitations, and Risks, Resistances to Using DSS

Unit 2: The Make-up of a Decision Support System (15 Hrs.)

Types and roles of DSS; Data component: data vs. information, quality of information, databases and database management systems, data warehouses; Model component: representation, linearity of the relationship, deterministic vs. stochastic, descriptive vs. normative, causality vs. correlation, methodology dimension, data mining and intelligent agents; Knowledge Engine Component; User Interface: Action language, display or presentation language, interface issues; User; Designing and Evaluating DSS Systems: Introduction, Design and Development Issues, Decision Oriented Diagnosis, Prepare a Feasibility Study, Choose a Development Approach, DSS Project Management and Participants; Designing and Evaluating DSS User Interfaces: Introduction, Overview of User Interface, User Interface Styles, ROMC Design Approach, Building DSS User Interface, Comments on Design Elements, Guidelines of Dialog and UI Design, Factors of UI Design Success

Unit 3: Modeling Decisions (6 Hrs.)

Introduction to Decision Analysis; Elements of Decision Problems, uncertain events, consequences, Structuring Decisions, Making Choices, making decisions with multiple objectives, assessing trade-off weights, Sensitivity Analysis, Value of Information and Experts

Unit 4: Expert Systems (10 Hrs.)

Definition and Features of Expert Systems, Architecture and Components of Expert Systems, Persons Who Interact with Expert Systems, Advantages and Disadvantages of Expert Systems, Expert Systems Development Life Cycle, Error Sources on Expert System Development

• Students should study and develop decision support systems or expert systems as a mini-project.