Introduction
Information is vital to everyday performance of business to individuals. New development in information technology such as decision support system gives a wide range of people the ability to make quicker decisions. D.J Power’s new data-driven decision support system (2007) allows the user to organize date faster than before because due to its new features people will be more efficient at work. People who would be interested in this research paper are researchers and or students looking to gain more knowledge on data-driven support system, as well as people who uses data support systems.
Background
Decision support system formally known as a DSS is a class if information system. DSS is define as “an interactive computer-based system or subsystem intended to help decision makers use communications technologies, data, documents, knowledge, and/or models to identify and solve problems, complete decision process tasks, and make decisions” (Power 2007). There are a wide range of users from higher level of decision making for business to consumer choices. One of the five major parts of DSS is data-driven decision support system. For example, data-driven decision support system has been used by the Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) air –defense command and control system it was used to provide real-time decision support (Power, 2000). The upgraded data-driven decision support system is created by D.J Powers in 2007 (Power, 2008). The new features includes Ad Hoc Data Filtering and Retrieval, alerts and triggers, creates data displays, data management, data summarization, excel integration, metadata creation and retrieval, report design, generation, storage, statistical analysis, view predefined data displays, and view production reports (Power, 2008). Additionally, with use of the World Wide Web, data decision support system reaches more people because it is affordable, easy to use, and accessible (Eliashberg & Swami. 2009). Data does not need to be located at a specific location but it can be directed worldwide allowing data support systems to be accessible (Eliashberg & Swami. 2009).
Potential benefits
Data-driven decision support system would benefit business in making their everyday operations efficient in production packaging, labor and resource requirements, warehousing and freight expenses, inventory management, and order distribution (Cohen, Marc-David. Kelly, Charles, etc 2002). For instance, ‘“for a particular real-time application, a combination of Jackson Structured Design and object-oriented analysis could overcome deficiencies that each of the methodologies had when used alone: “Rather than arguing about which one design method is best, we should take an eclectic view and use any combination of approaches that yields important results in a given situation.”’ (Vessey and Glass 1998).
Legal, Ethical and Social issues
There are numerous legal, ethical issues and social problems that could occur when developing and using decision support system. Before a DSS can be used it has already gone through a process and within that process error in legal, ethical, and social issues would affect the user of the system later on. For example, during development builders need to be sensitive to how the representations like charts and tables designed to present information impact the decision maker (Power 2000). First when the proposal for a new DSS is created it is very sensitive to error and the project sponsor needs to make clear and lay out the ethical issues associated with the project (Power 2000). In addition there are the following“DSS ethical issues requiring more thought: 1) data quality assurance, 2) hidden data capture, 3) propagating data errors, 4) ongoing use of an obsolete DSS, 5) data error and data linking, 6) combining internal and external data sources, 7) inappropriate use of customer profiles/data, 8) legal liability issues from failing to use or from misuse of a DSS, 9) data/key metrics exclusion, 10) DSS validation, 11)unauthorized data transfers, and 12) lack of policies or poor policy enforcement and lastly company policies should guide the behavior of managers and builders on these topics” ( Power 2000). It is the responsibility of the people in charge and the developers to avoid making the above errors to protect the public and the user of the data (Allenby, 2006).
Security concerns
The usage of internet with direct-decision support system is an advantage to the user and it is a disadvantage as well. The internet is highly accessible and though there is multiply software to prevent hackers and spyware it is not enough and the data in the DSS could be stolen and used against the company (Allenby, 2006). The web based data driven-decision support system could crash in one system and if it connected to another the whole system would crash and the user would end up with nothing (Holsapple, 2004)
Further required research
Further research that is helpful in understand the use and befits of DSS is the following; data driven-decision support system is only one of the five major decision support systems so more in dept research on the other four support systems would be beneficial. Also, this paper did not go into great dept about how data driven-decision support system operates. More information about the advances of having DSS verse not having DSS will be helpful in determining usefulness more accurately. More research in general could have been done to allow this paper to be longer and contain more information.
Conclusion
Without data driven-decision support systems it would be impossible for business to keep track of their operations due to the large amount of date that has to be process. The Power’s 2007 version of data driven-decision support systems allowance Ad Hoc Data Filtering and Retrieval, alerts and triggers, creates data displays, data management, data summarization, excel integration, metadata creation and retrieval, report design, generation, storage, statistical analysis, view predefined data displays, and view production reports an essential for global enterprise (Powers 2007). The direct decision support system ability to work with other software like the internet allows users to accesses the date regardless of location. The legal, ethical and social issue of the DSS is fragile because an error in one process will affect the other. Producers and users of the DSS should be aware and take careful measures to avoid such errors. Over all the direct-decision support system will benefit companies despite the size.
References
Allenby, Brad. (2006). Ethical systems in an age of accelerating technological evolution. IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment conference article. Pages 42-Retrieved February 17, 2011. 44.http://www.engineeringvillage2.com.mutex.gmu.edu/controller/servlet/Controller?SEARCHID=1579a3012e6c3cf9ac978prod3data2&CID=quickSearchDetailedFormat&DOCINDEX=25&database=7&format=quickSearchDetailedFormat
This article is relevant because it provides ethical information on information technology.
Cohen, Marc-David. Kelly, Charles. Medaglia, Andrés. (March-April 2001). Decision Support with Web-Enabled Software. SAS Institute. Vol. 31, No. 2, , pp. 109-129
Eliashberg, Jehoshua. Swami, Sanjeev. (2009). Evolutionary approach to the development of decision support systems in the movie industry. Elsevier B.V. Pages 1-12.
This book is relevant because it proved applied information to DSS.
This book is relevant because it proves that DSS can be used with other software.
Holsapple, Clyde W. (2004). Decision Support System. Encyclopedia of Information Systems, pages 551-565.
This book is relevant because it provided DSS basic concepts and terms.
Iris Vessey and Robert Glass (1998).Strong vs. weak approaches to systems development. Magazine Communications of the ACM. Volume 41 Issue 4. Retrieved February 17, 2011. This journal is relevant because it provides the weak points as well as the strong points of how DSS systems devolved. Power, Dan J. (2000). What are ethical issues associated with building and using DSS?.DSSResources.com. Retrieved February 17, 2011. http://dssresources.com/faq/index.php?action=artikel&id=159 This article is relevant because it provided ethical answers to DSS ethical questions. Power, Dan. J. (2008). Understanding Data-Driven Decision Support Systems. Information Systems Management, 25(2), 149-154 This article is relevant because it provides the overview of data-driven decision support system. Shim, J.P., Warkentin, Merrill.Courtney, James F., Power Daniel J., Sharda, Ramesh, Carlsson, Christer. (2002, January 9). Past, present, and future of decision support technology. Decision Support Systems Volume 33, Issue 2. This journal is relevant because it provides good background information on how DSS is and will be in the future. | ||||||
