The course is offered on the fifth term of the Bachelor's programme in Design of Information Systems, to exchange students and as a freestanding course.

Course description

The course aims to give an introduction and overview of Decision Support Systems (DSSs), which encompass a variety of concepts and theories about decisions, biases, data, systems, and governance of decision-making. Decision-making stands as a central activity for individuals, teams, and organizations. In the introduction, the course presents a broad perspective on what influences decision-making at the individual, group, and organizational levels. Furthermore, some key concepts, theories and methods of group decision making, along with the utilization of computer-supported technologies, such as Group Support Systems (GSS) and Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) are also introduced. As a second theme, the course explores the evolution of DSSs by examining various types of DSSs. Thirdly, the course introduces dimensional modeling, data warehousing and OLAP as pivotal concepts that contributed to the emergence of Business Intelligence. Finally in the fourth theme, the course addresses challenges and future trends in the domain of DSSs, encompassing the establishment of an organizational environment that facilitates DSS.

For the group project, students must work in teams to create an application designed to function as a data-driven DSS catering to various stakeholders within the fictitious international fashion company “Evans & Carther”. Through the group project the students should acquire knowledge on how to develop applications serving as data-driven DSS for different stakeholders and use cases.

Teaching method: Lectures, tutorials (where students can verify, supported by lecturer, their understanding of topics through warm-up exercises), guest lectures from industry and/or academic experts, seminars, computer laboratories, and individual supervision through office hours and group supervision.

The course doesn't require any programming and database knowledge, but having such knowledge can be advantageous, since Qlik Sense is used for the group project. As part of the course enrollment process, Qlik Sense licenses are allocated to students in the beginning of the course.