GDSS
A Group Decision Support System (GDSS) is an interactive, computer-based system that helps a team of decision-makers solve problems and make choices. GDSS are targeted to supporting groups in analyzing problem situations and in performing group decision-making tasks. The name is very descriptive. A GDSS is a hybrid system that uses an elaborate communications infrastructure and heuristic and quantitative models to support decision-making.

Benefits of GDSS:

• Preplanning: A clear-cut agenda of the topics for the meeting.
• Open, collaborative meeting atmosphere: Free flow of ideas and communications without any of the attendees feeling shy about contributing
• Evaluation objectivity: Reduces "office politics" and the chance that ideas will be dismissed because of who presented them instead of what was presented
• Documentation: Clear communication about what took place and what decisions were made by the group
• Preservation of "organizational memory": Even those unable to attend the meeting will know what took place; great for geographically separated team members.



GDSS Characteristics and Software Tools / Groupware:

Fig.


In GDSS the hardware includes more than just computers and peripheral equipment. It also includes the conference facilities, audiovisual equipment, and networking equipment that connect everyone. The persware extends to the meeting facilitators and the staff that keeps the hardware operating correctly. As the hardware becomes more sophisticated and widely available, many companies are bypassing specially equipped rooms in favor of having the group participants "attend" the meeting through their individual desktop computers.
Many of the software tools and programs discussed, Groupware, can also be used to support GDSS. Some of these software tools are being reworked to allow people to attend meetings through Intranets or Extranets. Some highlights:
• Electronic questionnaires: Set an agenda and plan ahead for the meeting
• Electronic brainstorming: Allows all users to participate without fear of reprisal or criticism
• Questionnaire tools: Gather information even before the meeting begins, so facts and information are readily available
• Stakeholder identification: Determines the impact of the group's decision
• Group dictionaries: Reduce the problem of different interpretations
Now instead of wasting time in meetings, people will know ahead of time what is on the agenda. All of the information generated during the meeting is maintained for future use and reference. Because input is anonymous, ideas are evaluated on their own merit. And for geographically separated attendees, travel time and dollars are saved. Electronic meeting systems make these efficiencies possible.




Features of GDSS
Most versions of GDSS use special meeting rooms where each participant is seated at a networked computer. A facilitator operates the network and keeps the discussion moving in the right direction. Before the meeting, the primary decision maker meets with the facilitator to establish the objective of the meeting. They setup sample questions and design the overall strategy.
Typical meetings begin with a brainstorming session, where participants are asked to think of ideas, problems and potential solutions. They type each of these into categories on their computers. The basic ideas and suggestions are stored in a database and shared with the group through the networked computers.
In terms of discussions and comments, the facilitator can choose individual items and project them on the screen for the entire group to analyse. Participants can write comments or criticisms of any idea at any time. This system is particularly helpful if many participants come up with many ideas and comments at the same time. The computer enables everyone to enter comments at the same time, which is faster than waiting for each person to finish speaking.
Another feature of using the computer for the entry of ideas and comments is that they can be anonymous. Although each comment is numbered, they are not traced back to the original author, so people are free to criticize their supervisor’s ideas. Anonymity reduces embarrassment and encourages people to submit riskier ideas.
At various points, the facilitator can call for participants to vote on some of the ideas and concepts. Depending on the software package, there can be several ways to vote. In addition to traditional one-vote methods, there are several schemes where you place weights on your choices. The votes are done on the computer and results appear immediately. Because it is so easy to vote, the GDSS encourages the group to take several votes. This approach makes it easier to drop undesirable alternatives early in the discussion.
One useful feature of conducting the meeting over a computer network is that all of the comments, criticisms, and votes are recorded. They can all be pointed at the end of the session. Managers can review all of the comments and add them to their reports.
In theory, a meeting could be conducted entirely on a computer network, saving costs and travel time if the participants are located in different cities. Also, if it is designed properly, a GDSS can give each participant access to the corporate data while he or she is in the meeting. If a question raises about various facts, the computer can find the answer without waiting for a second meeting.





Why do we need GDSS?
• Many organizations use group or team structures to organize the work effort.
• Complex decisions often require more co-ordinated efforts and input of multiple individuals.
• Decision making is diffused throughout the organization.
• Information technology is a powerful tool to support the group decision making processes of an organization





Goals of GDSS
A. Mitigate the problems of group work.
• Social pressures of conformity may result in "groupthink".
• Lack of co-ordination of work and poor planning of meetings.
• Inappropriate influence of group dynamics.
• Tendency of group members to rely on others to do most of the work.
• Tendency toward compromised solutions of poor quality;
• Social "loafing"
• Tendency to repeat what was already said.
• Larger costs of making decisions.
• Tendency of group to take riskier decisions than they should.
• Incomplete or inappropriate use of information.
• Inappropriate representation in group.
B. Accentuate the Benefits of group work.
• Groups are better than individuals at understanding problems.
• Groups are better than individuals at catching errors.
• A group has more knowledge/information than any one member.
• Working in a group may stimulate the participants and the process.
• The participation of the members in a decision means less likelihood to resist implementation.
• People are accountable for the decisions that they participate in.
C. Support multiple group processes.
• Generate ideas and alternatives
• Provide methods that aid the decision and judgment process
• Provide access to rules that will aid the choice between alternatives
• Provide methods for reconciling conflict.





How GDSS Can Enhance Group Decision Making
Go back to the previous list of problems associated with meetings and you can determine how GDSS solve some of these problems.
1. Improved preplanning: Forces an agenda to keep the meeting on track.
2. Increased participation: Increases the number of people who can effectively contribute to the meeting.
3. Open, collaborative meeting atmosphere: Nonjudgmental input by all attendees.
4. Criticism-free idea generation: Anonymity can generate more input and better ideas.
5. Evaluation objectivity: The idea itself is evaluated and not the person contributing the idea.
6. Idea organization and evaluation: Organized input makes it easier to comprehend the results of the meeting.
7. Setting priorities and making decisions: All management levels are on equal footing.
8. Documentation of meetings: Results of meeting are available soon after for further use and discussion.
9. Access to external information: Reduces amount of disagreements by having the facts.
10. Preservation of "organizational memory:" Information is available to other groups within the organization.
You can see from this list that the potential for efficient and effective meetings is increased by using GDSS to promote open and organized decision making in groups.
More and more, decisions are being made by groups in today's business environment. Most meetings are inefficient. Using Group Decision Support Systems, comprised of hardware, software, and people, helps streamline group meetings and communications by removing obstacles and using technology to increase the effectiveness of the decisions.






Limitations of GDSS
Perhaps the greatest drawback to a GDSS is that it requires participants to type in their ideas, comments and criticisms. Most people are used to meetings based on oral discussions. Even if they have adequate typing skills, a GDSS can inhibit some managers.
Along the same lines, in a traditional meeting, only one person speaks at a time, and everyone concentrates on the same issue at the same time. With a GDSS your focus is continually drawn to the many different comments and discussions taking place at the same time. People who type rapidly and fit from topic to topic will find that they can dominate the discussions.
In terms of costs, maintaining a separate meeting room with networked computers can be expensive. Unless the facility is used on a regular basis, the computers will be idle a great deal of then time. When you factor in the costs for network software, the GDSS software, and other utilities, the costs multiply. One way to minimize this problem is to lease the facilities that have been established by a couple of universities and some companies.
The use of GDSS also requires a trained facilitator – someone who can lead discussions, help users, and control the GDSS software on the network. Hiring an in-house specialist can be very expensive of there are only a few meetings a year. Again, using facilities are scrupulously honest; there might be some topics that you do not want to discuss with non-employees.
One way to overcome these limitations is to alter the approach to the meetings. Instead of requiring everyone to get together at the same time in on room, meetings could be held via network discussion groups. Each participant could read the messages, add comments, and vote on issues electronically at any time from any location. Again, the internet offers possibilities to provide these facilities, but it could be a few years before organisations and managers can accept the changes required.





Expert System

An expert system, also known as a knowledge based system, is a computer program that contains the knowledge and analytical skills of one or more human experts, related to a specific subject. This class of program was first developed by researchers in artificial intelligence during the 1960s and 1970s and applied commercially throughout the 1980s The primary goal of expert systems research is to make expertise available to decision makers and technicians who need answers quickly. There is never enough expertise to go around -- certainly it is not always available at the right place and the right time. Portable with computers loaded with in-depth knowledge of specific subjects can bring decades worth of knowledge to a problem. The same systems can assist supervisors and managers with situation assessment and long-range planning. Many small systems now exist that bring a narrow slice of in-depth knowledge to a specific problem, and these provide evidence that the broader goal is achievable.
These knowledge-based applications of artificial intelligence have enhanced productivity in business, science, engineering, and the military. With advances in the last decade, today's expert systems clients can choose from dozens of commercial software packages with easy-to-use interfaces.
Each new deployment of an expert system yields valuable data for what works in what context, thus fueling the AI research that provides even better applications.

SQL SERVER

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) produced by Microsoft. Its primary query language is Transact-SQL, an implementation of the ANSI/ISO standard Structured Query Language (SQL) used by both Microsoft and Sybase.

The next version of SQL Server is SQL Server 2008, code-named "Katmai",slated to launch on February 27, 2008 and release (RTM) in Q3 2008. The most recent CTP was made available in November of 2007. SQL Server 2008 aims to make data management self-tuning, self organizing, and self maintaining with the development of SQL Server Always On technologies, to provide near-zero downtime. SQL Server 2008 will also include support for structured and semi-structured data, including digital media formats for pictures, audio, video and other multimedia data. In current versions, such multimedia data can be stored as BLOBs (binary large objects), but they are generic bitstreams. Intrinsic awareness of multimedia data will allow specialized functions to be performed on them. Other new data types include specialized date and time types and a Spatial data type for location-dependent data. Better support for unstructured and semi-structured data is provided as well. For unstructured data, specialized data types, including the File and FILESTREAM types have been added, with the latter used to reference any file stored on the file system for management with SQL Server. According to Paul Flessner, senior Vice President, Server Applications, Microsoft Corp., SQL Server 2008 can be a data storage backend for different varieties of data: XML, email, time/calendar, file, document, spatial, etc as well as perform search, query, analysis, sharing, and synchronization across all data types.

SQL Server 2005 Features

Enterprise Data Management
Technology - Capabilities
High Availability
Failover clustering and database mirroring technology in SQL Server 2005 enables enterprises to deliver highly reliable, available applications to employees, customers, and partners.

Management Tools
SQL Server 2005 introduces an integrated suite of management tools and management application programming interfaces (APIs) to provide ease of use, manageability, and support for operating large-scale SQL Server deployments.

Security Enhancements
SQL Server 2005 has been designed to help provide the highest level of security for enterprise data through features such as database encryption, more secure default settings, password policy enforcement, granular permissions control, and an enhanced security model.

Scalability
Scalability advancements in SQL Server 2005 include table partitioning, replication enhancements, and 64-bit support.

Developer Productivity
Technology Capabilities
Common Language Runtime (CLR) Integration
SQL Server 2005 introduces the capability to develop database objects using any Microsoft .NET language.

Deep XML Integration
SQL Server 2005 delivers a new XML data type, enabling the storage of XML fragments or documents in SQL Server databases.

Transact-SQL Enhancements
New query types and the capability to use error handling in transactions provide developers with more flexibility and control in SQL Server query development.

SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition
Full integration of SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition with SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 provides a platform for developers to rapidly build applications that extend enterprise data management capabilities to mobile devices.

Business Intelligence
Technology Capabilities
Analysis Services
Analysis Services provides a unified and integrated view of all your business data as the foundation for all of your traditional reporting, OLAP analysis, Key Performance Indicator (KPI) scorecards and data mining.

Integration Services
SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is a next generation data integration platform that can integrate data from any source. SSIS provides a scalable and extensible platform that empowers development teams to build, manage, and deploy integration solutions to meet unique integration needs.

Reporting Services
SQL Server Reporting Services is a comprehensive, server-based reporting solution designed to help you author, manage, and deliver both paper-based and interactive Web-based reports.

Data Mining
SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services (SSAS) provides tools for data mining with which you can identify rules and patterns in your data, so that you can determine why things happen and predict what will happen in the future—giving you powerful insight that will help your company make better business decisions.

System Databases

SQL Server 2005 includes the following system databases.

System database - Description
1. master Database
Records all the system-level information for an instance of SQL Server.

2. msdb Database
Is used by SQL Server Agent for scheduling alerts and jobs.

3. model Database
Is used as the template for all databases created on the instance of SQL Server. Modifications made to the model database, such as database size, collation, recovery model, and other database options, are applied to any databases created afterward.

4. Resource Database
Is a read-only database that contains system objects that are included with SQL Server 2005. System objects are physically persisted in the Resource database, but they logically appear in the sys schema of every database.

5. tempdb Database
Is a workspace for holding temporary objects or intermediate result sets.

Creating the Database
Our first step is to create the database itself. Many database management systems offer a series of options to customize database parameters at this step, but our database only permits the simple creation of a database. As with all of our commands, you may wish to consult the documentation for your DBMS to determine if any advanced parameters supported by your specific system meet your needs. Let's use the CREATE DATABASE command to set up our database:
CREATE DATABASE personnel
Take special note of the capitalization used in the example above. It's common practice among SQL programmers to use all capital letters for SQL keywords such as "CREATE" and "DATABASE" while using all lowercase letters for user-defined names like the "personnel" database name. These conventions provide for easy readability.

Now we can take a look at the SQL command used to create our employees table:
CREATE TABLE employees(employeeid INTEGER NOT NULL,lastname VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL,firstname VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL,reportsto INTEGER NULL);

CONSTRAINTS

You can place constraints to limit the type of data that can go into a table. Such constraints can be specified when the table when the table is first created via the CREATE TABLE statement, or after the table is already created via the ALTER TABLE statement.

Common types of constraints include the following:
- NOT NULL
- UNIQUE
- CHECK
- Primary Key
- Foreign Key

Each is described in detail below.
NOT NULL

By default, a column can hold NULL. If you not want to allow NULL value in a column, you will want to place a constraint on this column specifying that NULL is now not an allowable value.

For example, in the following statement,

CREATE TABLE Customer
(SID integer NOT NULL,
Last_Name varchar (30) NOT NULL,
First_Name varchar(30));

Columns "SID" and "Last_Name" cannot include NULL, while "First_Name" can include NULL.

UNIQUE

The UNIQUE constraint ensures that all values in a column are distinct.

For example, in the following statement,

CREATE TABLE Customer
(SID integer Unique,
Last_Name varchar (30),
First_Name varchar(30));

Column "SID" cannot include duplicate values, while such constraint does not hold for columns "Last_Name" and "First_Name".

Please note that a column that is specified as a primary key must also be unique. At the same time, a column that's unique may or may not be a primary key.

CHECK

The CHECK constraint ensures that all values in a column satisfy certain conditions.

For example, in the following statement,

CREATE TABLE Customer
(SID integer CHECK (SID > 0),
Last_Name varchar (30),
First_Name varchar(30));

Column "SID" must only include integers greater than 0.

Please note that the CHECK constraint does not get enforced by MySQL at this time.

DATA MANIPULATION LANGUAGE

Data Manipulation Language (DML) is a family of computer languages used by computer programs or database users to retrieve, insert, delete and update data in a database.

Currently, the most popular data manipulation language is that of SQL, which is used to retrieve and manipulate data in a Relational database. Other forms of DML are those used by IMS/DL1, CODASYL databases (such as IDMS), and others.

Data manipulation languages were initially only used by computer programs, but (with the advent of SQL) have come to be used by people, as well.

Data Manipulation Languages have their functional capability organized by the initial word in a statement, which is almost always a verb. In the case of SQL, these verbs are:

Select
Insert
Update
Delete
This makes the nature of the language into a set of imperative statements (commands) to the database.

Data Manipulation Languages tend to have many different flavors and capabilities between database vendors. There has been a standard established for SQL by ANSI, but vendors still provide their own extensions to the standard while not implementing the entire standard.

There are two types of Data Manipulation languages:

Procedural
Declarative