Using this Text

The content of Decision Support Systems: A Knowledge-Based Approach is fairly modular and sufficiently flexible to support a wide variety of course needs. These needs are influenced by the backgrounds of students, the course length, the course's position in a business computing curriculum, and the instructor's objectives. For instance, for students whose backgrounds include thorough grounding in the nature of decision making and managerial work, the first three chapters of Part One may be skipped. For a quarter-length DSS course, Part Four may be skipped and perhaps covered in a subsequent quarter-length course focusing on business expert systems. If a curriculum's DSS course follows a course that surveys knowledge management techniques, then Part Three may be skipped or merely skimmed. If an instructor's course objectives do not include in-depth coverage of artificially intelligent DSSs, then Part Four may be omitted (with the possible exception of Chapter 12); if examination of executive information systems is not an objective, then Chapter 18 can be skipped; and so forth.

The book is designed to give instructors considerable discretion in the choice of reading assignments to meet their particular courses' needs.

A sample course schedule for undergraduate MIS majors or MBA students is shown in Exhibit A. As indicated above, numerous adjustments can be made to this schedule depending on student backgrounds, instructor inclinations, and so on. In the first six weeks, for instance, the proportion of class time devoted to the text (as opposed to selected supplements on specific software tools) might range from 2/3 to 1/3. In the former case, students would be fairly well-versed in software tools, but in need of considerable coverage and synthesis regarding basics of management and decision making. In the latter case, students would need only a review of the highlights of Part One (e.g., omitting sections marked with asterisks), while requiring more extensive treatment of software tools. This schedule assumes that students (either individually or in groups) will prepare proposals for DSS development projects to be undertaken with selected software tools. Ideally, Chapter 7 should have been covered by the time such proposals are due.

All or portions of Part Three may be considered optional, based on the degree of student grounding in basic knowledge management techniques. In a curriculum where expert systems are treated in a separate course, an instructor can omit all or portions of Part Four from Exhibit A. The chapters in this part are arranged so that Chapter 15 has the most advanced material and can be omitted if desired. The coverage of Parts Four and Five could be readily interchanged in the schedule.

A sample course schedule for a doctoral course in decision support systems is shown in Exhibit B. It assumes that students are already well-versed in the use of specific software tools or that they can become so through their own independent efforts during the course. Research paper topics would likely be chosen from a list of DSS issues that are more advanced than those treated in the book, but for which the book gives a foundation on which to build.

Yet another way to use this book is as the backbone for the core business computing course in a management curriculum. If a management student takes only one business computing course, what should be its content? There are several ways to answer this question. It could be a survey of business computing topics, a study of what information systems professionals do, or coverage of bits, bytes, baud rates, and other technical building blocks. There are many fine books available to address these topics. However, there is another compelling way to answer the question. Because each management student aspires to be a knowledge worker engaged in some kind of decision making, at the minimum he or she should appreciate the concepts and techniques of knowledge management as a foundation for decision making. That is, the core business computing course could well be an exploration of computer-based knowledge management.

This book furnishes a strong and unique conceptual backbone for a knowledge-management course - with software-specific supplements being used to flesh out the applied side. Thus, the student is learning not only about the current features of some software tool of managing knowledge, but also learning about 1) the nature and significance of managing knowledge (Part One), 2) the role of knowledge management in devising computer systems that support decision making of managers (Part Two), 3) the main traits of major computer-based techniques for managing knowledge (Part Three), and 4) the growing importance of knowledge management from an organizational perspective (Part Five). (Part Four is too advanced for an introductory knowledge management course, and more advanced portions of the other Parts can be skipped as well.)

Exhibit C shows one way to organize a knowledge management course that is a core business computing component of a management curriculum. It assumes that the instructor will select a specific software tool or tools that permit students to do hands-on exercises with five knowledge management techniques: text management, data management, spreadsheet management, graphics management, and message management. Of course, the choice and number of knowledge-management techniques as well as the order of their coverage and the supplemental product-specific tutorials used, are at the discretion of the instructor.

The book can also form the heart of a course in business expert systems in a curriculum that treats this subject matter separately from decision support systems. Complementing the text, the instructor would select a specific expert system development tool (e.g., VP-Expert, M.1) and associated tutorial (e.g., VP-Expert for Business Applications by Hicks and Lee from Holden-Day, Developing Knowledge-Based Systems Using an Expert System Shell by Mockler from Macmillan). Exhibit D illustrates a sample course structure based on the book. The introduction and background could use early parts of the book to provide a context for the detailed study of Part Four (e.g., sections 4.1, 4.3, 4.4, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.5, 11.5, 11.7, and perhaps other sections from Part Three).