UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2018/2019
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN
DATA ANALYICS/ MASTER OF SCIENCE IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS
MANAGEMENT
MDA 5203/MISM 5203: DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
DATE: AUGUST 2019 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question One & ANY OTHER TWO questions.
QUESTION ONE
A decision support system (DSS) is an information system that supports business or organizational
decision-making activities. DSSs serve the management, operations and planning levels of an
organization (usually mid and higher management) and help people make decisions about
problems that may be rapidly changing and not easily specified in advance—i.e. unstructured and
semi-structured decision problems. Decision support systems can be either fully computerized or
human-powered, or a combination of both.
While academics have perceived DSS as a tool to support decision making processes, DSS users
see DSS as a tool to facilitate organizational processes. Some authors have extended the definition
of DSS to include any system that might support decision making and some DSS include a
decision-making software component. DSSs include knowledge-based systems. A properly
designed DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile
useful information from a combination of raw data, documents, and personal knowledge, or
business models to identify and solve problems and make decisions.
a) What are the different types of decision support systems? [5 Marks]
b) What are some components of a larger decision support system? [4 Marks]
c) What are the levels of decision making? [6 Marks]
d) What are the steps of decision making? [5 Marks]
QUESTION TWO
a) What is data mining? [2 Marks]
b) List and briefly describe the classes of decision makers. [3 Marks]
c) Describe the three forces that affect a particular individual’s decision style. [3 Marks]
d) List and briefly describe the three fundamental components of a problem structure.
[3 Marks]
e) Explain the term organization. [2 Marks]
f) Define sensitivity analysis and state its value to the decision maker. [2 Marks]
QUESTION THREE
a) What is Groupware. Where is it applicable? [3 Marks]
b) What is a data warehouse? How is it better than traditional information-gathering
techniques? [4 Marks]
c) Compare the two common methods of modeling a problem structure: influence diagram
and decision tree. What are the focuses of each? [4 Marks]
d) List and briefly describe four basic types of communication networks in group
interactions. [4 Marks]
QUESTION FOUR
a) What is data visualization? [ 2 Marks]
b) Describe genes and chromosomes as applied to genetic algorithms. [ 2 Marks]
c) Identify any three risk factors in DSS implementation projects. [ 3 Marks]
d) What are the three primary challenges to obtaining valid knowledge? [ 3 Marks]
e) Explain the five dimensions of organizational decisions. [ 5 Marks]
