THE EVOLVING ROLES OF MODELS IN DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS*

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Abstract
An important aspect of decision support systems (DSS) is their utilization of computational models. To illustrate the evolving roles of models in decision support systems, several representative systems are reviewed. These illustrations reveal three major interfaces that must be considered by a decision support system's designer. Successful treatment of these DSS interfaces depends upon two types of languages: one for directing computations and one for directing data manipulation. Each language type is presented as forming a spectrum of languages. Combined, the two spectra provide a classification scheme for decision support systems. This scheme is both useful as a framework for comparative study of decision support systems and also suggestive of directions for future research and developments in the decision support field.