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:

  1. 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.
  2. Who are the stakeholders of the case study DSS? Describe the impact of the DSS on the major groups of stakeholders.
  3. How will the DSS be used? We will use the responses for this question to begin developing an operational concept for our system.
  4. 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>.