Announcement: Innovations in Teaching Decision Support Systems Development

NSF supported summer 2004 faculty workshops

Gainesville, FL, March 1, 2004 - Faculty teaching Decision Support Systems are invited to attend a Summer 2004 DSS workshop. Professors Ravi Ahuja, University of Florida, and Wayne Winston, Indiana University, have organized two DSS workshops for August 2004. The U.S. National Science Foundation and the University of Florida College of Engineering are partially funding the workshops.

Workshop 1: Developing Spreadsheet-Based Decision Support Systems
August 1 - 4 (Amelia Island Plantation, Jacksonville, FL)


Workshop 2: Developing Web-Enabled Decision Support Systems
August 4 - 7 (Amelia Island Plantation, Jacksonville, FL)

For details on the workshops check www.ise.ufl.edu/dss.

The organizers are developing decision support systems courses for industrial engineering and business school students. Decision support systems (DSS) combine information technology tools with operations research techniques to develop complete software solutions that users need. Decision support systems integrate databases, model bases, and knowledge bases. DSS development skills are critical for students to learn so they can then build systems which run sophisticated quantitative methods in the back-end but the front-end is friendly enough to be used comfortably by a non-expert.

The organizers and their colleagues are developing instructional material for two courses in DSS development skills including textbooks, case studies, PowerPoint presentations, homework questions, solution manuals, and student team projects. In the above two NSF supported workshops, workshop leaders will share this material with the workshop participants. The participants will not only learn from book authors and accomplished academicians the subject material but they will also learn how to effectively teach such courses.

These workshops will be held at the Amelia Island Plantation (www.aipfl.com) near Jacksonville, FL. Amelia Island Plantation is a premium beach-front resort in north Florida which offers a great learning environment in a very pleasant setting.

Please share this workshop announcement with your DSS faculty colleagues and contact us if you have any questions.

Regards,

Ravi Ahuja                and     Wayne Winston
Professor                         Professor
Industrial & Systems Engg.        Kelley School of Business
University of Florida             Indiana University
Gainesville, FL 32611             Bloomington, IN 47405
ahuja@ufl.edu                     winston@indiana.edu