From DSS to DSP
Arun Sen · Communications of the ACM · 1998
Computers and their associated programs have touched us all.Computer programs that are application oriented, require data, and produce information outputs (like reports, charts, recommendations, and others) are called "information systems."The three major kinds of information systems are transaction processing systems, management reporting systems, and decision support systems.Of these, the decision support system (DSS) is the most recent.The term was first introduced by Gorry and Scott Morton [7] approximately 25 years ago.According to them, a DSS is a system that supports managers in unstructured decision-making situations.This definition is very general, and does not explain the DSS structure.This is why we find it difficult to answer a simple question like "what is a DSS?" On the other hand, we can explicitly describe the other two information systems.For example, a transaction processing system is an application program whose main objective is to manage transaction data such as cash receipts, inventory data, orders, bills, invoices and so on.The management reporting system, on the other hand, stresses the importance of reports for the management.Why is the definition of a DSS so nebulous?Is there a fixed architecture for a DSS, or do DSSs favor varied architectures?Is DSS simply an user interface that acts as an umbrella to the underlying tools?Or is there a decision support process for which a DSS serves as an environment to manage this process?This paper attempts to clarify the DSS controversy by answering the above questions.Our discussion will reveal that in spite of a sustained interest in this area, research has been fragmented and dispersed over varied underlying domains like database management systems (DBMSs), artificial intelligence (AI), software engineering, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), and cognitive science.