*********************************************************** DSS News D. J. Power, Editor December 18, 2005 -- Vol. 6, No. 27 A Free Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM more than 1,400 Subscribers ************************************************************ Happy Holidays from the DSS News and DSSResources.com team Dan, Carol, Alex, Ben and Greg Power Check PowerEnterprises.net ************************************************************ Featured: * Ask Dan! - What should be taught in a Business Intelligence/Data-Driven DSS course? * DSS Conferences * DSS News Releases ************************************************************ Visit DSSResources.com; Support our advertisers Advertise here! ************************************************************ Ask Dan! What should be taught in a Business Intelligence/Data-Driven DSS course? by Dan Power On Tuesday, December 13, 2005, Michael Lane, Lecturer Information Systems Department, Faculty of Business, University of Southern Queensland, asked for information about a "Business Intelligence course and textbook" on the ISWORLD listserv. ISWORLD is an academic mailing list with about 3,000 subscribers from around the World. The email responses to the listserv show the confusion about the term business intelligence. One colleague suggested some Artificial Intelligence books for the course and identified business intelligence as a part of a broader course on Intelligent Systems. This is similar to the perspective suggested by Vasant Dhar and Roger Stein in their 1997 book "Intelligent Decision Support Methods: The Science of Knowledge Work". The trade version of their book is titled "Seven Methods for Transforming Corporate Data Into Business Intelligence". Chapter 4 of Dhar and Stein is titled Data-Driven Decision Support and it covers data warehousing and OLAP. This chapter certainly influenced my thinking about types of DSS. Other chapters focus on neural networks, rule-based systems, case-based reasoning and machine learning. The book is dated, but still a good historical and conceptual reference. Another colleague, Ghazi Alkhatib, replied and noted "We have to distinguish between AI and BI. Having a full course on BI may look infeasible, since the topic is still evolving at the conceptual level." Another colleague wrote "I guess the best place to find information about BI is the web site of Microstrategy ..." In my opinion the best response came from Rob Meredith at Monash University in Australia. He wrote "Although a common misconception, I agree with Ghazi's differentiation of BI from intelligent systems - the term has quite a specific meaning in industry, encompassing technologies such as OLAP, EIS, Data Warehouses, DSS (with an emphasis on data-driven, rather than model-driven DSS, however), Analytic CRM and so on. In other words, reporting systems designed to support the everyday activities of managers." Rob continues "At Monash University, we have an undergraduate unit entitled Business Intelligence Systems (IMS3001), and a specialisation within a Masters degree with units on DSS (IMS5005), OLAP & Business Intelligence (IMS5004), Data Warehousing (IMS5026) and Customer Relationship Management (IMS5028)." He concludes "For the units I teach, I don't specify a required textbook, since most don't really have the coverage I want - instead I draw heavily on the DSS, management science and Judgement & Decision Making literature, data warehousing books such as those by Ralph Kimball, and various other resources." The interest in Data-Driven DSS for performance monitoring and for finding business intelligence information is increasing. Perhaps it is time for a specialized elective on this topic in Information Technology/Systems programs. In general, I advocate a broad survey course in Decision Support Systems as an anchor for all managers and Information Systems specialists. In recent years, we have relied upon vendor training and on-the-job training to educate managers and IS folks about DSS and especially Data-Driven DSS. Such an informal approach leads to vendor "hype" and misconceptions about the what, how, and why of technology solutions. So what should be included in a more specialized course about "Building Data-Driven Decision Support Systems"? Rather than start with a blank slate, we can look back to Hugh Watson, George Houdeshel and Rex Rainer's book from 1997 titled "Building Executive Information Systems and other Decision Support Applications". The book was published after the Executive Information Systems (EIS) "buzz" had given way to new "buzz words" like business intelligence. So what topics did Watson, Houdeshel and Rainer cover in their book? Chapter 1 is "An Introduction to EIS". EIS is "a computerized system that provides executives easy access to internal and external information that is relevant to their critical success factors. (p. 3)" If we define executives broadly as all managers and senior staff, then EIS is intended to provide performance monitoring. The business intelligence people added "simple to use" report and query tools to the mix to let executives develop their own queries. The OLAP folks added drill-down and pivot tables. So we need to start with an overview of Data-Driven DSS/BI, what it is and what it is not. Chapter 2 describes "An EIS Development Framework". The first section is a structural perspective that describes what motivates managers to develop EIS. This is still an important issue. Then the process of developing a computerized support system is explored: the proposal, the prototype, etc. The last section briefly focuses on the interface of a system. Chapter 3 examines the targeted users -- "Understanding Executives, Their Work, and Information Needs". Given the nature of Data-Driven DSS this topic is still important. Chapter 4 discusses "Gaining Executive Commitment". A study by Watson and Glover (1989) found that 52 percent of EIS failures were "due in part to a lack of executive commitment". That finding probably still holds for current BI systems and Data-Driven DSS as well. In the next chapter, Chapter 5, the focus is on "Assembling the EIS Staff". The staff for development and maintenance should differ. A project manager or DSS manager is still the key player in a successful project. Consultants, vendors and contract staff also play an important role in the development process that needs to be understood. Chapter 6 is "Determining the Need" and Chapter 7 follows with "Determining the Information Requirements". Once the need is established and the information requirements have been determined, then Watson, Houdeshel and Rainer move on to Hardware and Software requirements. This development process perspective can help students understand the major issues in building a Data-Driven DSS. Chapter 9 briefly addresses "Structuring the Information". This topic is very important and would need to be expanded to deal with data modeling topics. Chapter 10 focuses on screen design. The graphical user interface is much easier to build with modern development tools, but it remains the most important single component. Even with "good" data, a Data-Driven DSS with a "poorly designed" interface will not be used. Chapter 11 returns to "Managing the Data". The chapter addresses data management, data sources and data integration, data ownership and security, and data warehouses. This chapter probably deserves two separate chapters today. Starting with Chapter 12 other important topics are included as chapters: soft information, overcoming political resistance, assessing benefits, keys to success, public sector issues, and future directions. The book ends with two case studies and a guide to software selection. So what would I teach in a course on "Building Data-Driven DSS"? In a perfect world, I would teach an updated Watson, Houdeshel and Rainer! As always your comments and suggestions are welcomed. References Dhar, V. and R. Stein, "Intelligent Decision Support Methods: The Science of Knowledge Work," Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997. Power, D.J., "Decision Support Systems: Concepts and Resources for Managers," Greenwood, 2002. Watson H. and H. Glover, "Common and Avoidable Causes of EIS Failure," Computerworld, December 4, 1989, pp. 90-91. Watson, H., G. Houdeshel and R. Rainer, "Building Executive Information Systems and other Decision Support Applications," New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. Please note: Dr. Daniel Power is visiting in the Information Systems group at National Sun Yat-Sen University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan from December 19-January 6, 2006. Professor T.P. Liang is hosting Professor Power's visit and they plan to work on joint research. ************************************************************ Purchase Dan Power's DSS FAQ book 83 frequently asked questions about computerized DSS http://dssresources.com/dssbookstore/power2005.html ************************************************************ DSS Conferences 1. ISCRAM2006, the Third International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, Newark, New Jersey, USA, at the New Jersey Institute of Technology from May 14-17, 2006. Check http://www.iscram.org . 2. ICKEDS 2006, the Second International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Decision Support, Lisbon, Portugal, May 9-12, 2006. Check http://www.gecad.isep.ipp.pt/ICKEDS06/ . 3. CIDMDS 2006, International Conference on Creativity and Innovation in Decision Making and Decision Support sponsored by IFIP WG 8.3, June 28th - July 1st 2006, London, UK. Check http://www.ifip-dss.org/ . 4. DEXA 2006, 17th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications, September 4-8, 2006, Krakow, Poland. Check http://www.dexa.org . 5. ICDSS 2007, 9th International Conference on DSS, Jan. 2-4, 2007, Calcutta, India. Theme: Decision Support for Global Enterprises. Check http://www.ICDSS2007.org . Papers due May 10, 2006. ************************************************************ Call for Nominations: AIS SIG DSS Award for Best Journal Article 2005, nominations due March 15, 2006. Check http://dssresources.com/news/1063.php . ************************************************************ DSS News Releases - December 5 to December 16, 2005 Read them at DSSResources.COM and search the DSS News Archive 12/16/2005 Information Builders continues to be a hot item for the retail industry. 12/15/2005 SAP's newest CRM release makes industry gains. 12/15/2005 SAS ranks as No. 1 business intelligence vendor in Asia Pacific. 12/14/2005 Webinar survey shows increase in reporting accuracy is primary expected benefit of master data management initiatives. 12/14/2005 SAS and HHS renew enterprisewide contract to support mission-critical programs. 12/13/2005 Leading life-like videoconferencing vendor, Teliris, questions value of HP's entrance into virtual collaboration marketplace. 12/13/2005 Pure Fishing orders new pick-to-light systems from CAPE Systems. 12/13/2005 StratBridge launches instant analytics software for easy, yet comprehensive, data analysis. 12/13/2005 Epocrates to make Medicare Part D Formulary data available at the point of care. 12/12/2005 PROS Revenue Management opens registration for its annual Revenue Management Conference. 12/12/2005 SAIC to provide systems development services to the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System. 12/08/2005 FINEOS delivers Principal Financial Group with claims management and payments system. 12/08/2005 IDC reveals radical changes in spatial information management that will impact most IT companies. 12/06/2005 Nucleus Research releases business intelligence scorecard. 12/06/2005 Insightful Corporation releases Insightful Miner(TM) 7. 12/06/2005 Schwab's new Options Strategy Finder tool helps investors identify optimal trading strategies. 12/06/2005 MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform to be used by Limited Brands. 12/06/2005 Microsoft announces general availability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0. 12/05/2005 BI leader SAS helps Quaker Chemical win CIO Insight business-technology alignment award. 12/05/2005 Federal Government begins pandemic planning with states. 12/05/2005 MIS Magazine names Attensity a "Rising Star" of 2005; text analytics technology company one of only 10 vendors chosen. 12/05/2005 Global Crossing network supports world record in transatlantic real-time data stream for visualization. ************************************************************ DSS News is copyrighted (c) 2005 by D. J. Power. Please send your questions to daniel.power@dssresources.com |