SYST 542 Discussion Question 1: Problem Definition
Initial Response due 12:00 AM Sunday, September, 3, 2006
This semester's case study is a decision support system to assist GMU students in planning a program of study.
Description: A system is required to assist students at
George Mason University in planning a program of study. One of
the services provided by the PatriotWeb information system is the
degree audit, which informs students of which degree requirements have
been met and which are still outstanding. However, PatriotWeb
does not include any planning functions, and currently the process of
planning which courses to take in the future is entirely a manual
process. As a consequence, many students find themselves needing
to stay a semester or two longer than planned, or having to take
different courses than they would prefer to take. Many of these
situations would have been easily prevented with advance planning.
Many students do plan ahead diligently, and would be well-served
by a tool that would reduce the tedium and help to prevent errors.
Furthermore, planning data, if available, would be useful
for program administrators and department chairs in forecasting demand
for courses and planning course offerings. Although program planning is
outside the intended scope of this project, interoperation with an
eventual program planning system should be considered in the design.
The purpose of this week's question is to define the problem .
Questions to consider:
- It is important when designing a decision support system to
understand
the decision process to be supported.
Sometimes
introduction of a DSS entails major changes in the decision process.
However,
history has shown that the most successful decision support systems do
not
require major change in how people go about their jobs. Using
your knowledge and available GMU resources, describe the current
process of how a typical student plans a program of study.
What sources of information are currently available to support
this process? We will use this description to construct a
vision statement for our system.
- Who are the stakeholders of the case study DSS? Describe the impact of the DSS on the major groups of stakeholders.
- How will the DSS be used? We will use the
responses
for this question to begin developing an operational concept for our
system.
- Describe your approach to obtaining user requirements, and your
approach to obtaining feedback from the user population to ensure that
the system meets
the needs of its target users.
Please aim for brevity in your response -- your classmates have to read all these postings!
Initial postings need not address all issues; you may pick one or
two
to address. You must address all four questions in your final
answer;
although you need not address all issues at the same level of depth.
Open discussion will be via WebCT. Please post at least one
message during the general discussion period. Be prepared to
discuss
the issues raised in the dialogue in class next week. Open discussion
ends at 12:00AM on Sunday, September 3, 2006. Your final response should address all the
questions
listed above. Your final response is due by 7:00 PM Friday, September 8,
2006
by email to the instructor at klaskey@gmu.edu or via the Final Response section of WebCT.
Please remember to use the required header on email responses and to put your name on every page. The
subject line of your email should say SYST542 DISQ1: <your name>.