Executive summary
In this paper, we will relate some of the experiences which rose from the application of a Decision Support System (DSS) at Tehran University. The DSS focuses on forecasting an effective trend of entering new students each year to provide adequate facilities and a better educational environment. It involves a Decision Support System based on an Excel spreadsheet that could help the university to get more prepared in facing unstable conditions in today’s competitive education environment.
Introduction
So this Decision Support System in Tehran University will influence, as its name suggests, in supporting the complex decisions that should be made and solving problems that may arise due to the poor existing information system (Tatnall and Burgess 2007). The graphical user interface which is made from the use of computing would give a better understanding of the current status and make a realistic future prediction. Later on in this paper, we will introduce a DSS-based Excel spreadsheet to demonstrate how these goals can be fulfilled.
Identification
The University of Tehran, otherwise called “Mother University”, is the largest and oldest educational center of Iran. As an institution, it has had a remarkable influence on the development of Iranian society.
Each year, before applying the new DSS, many students choose Tehran University as a destination for their studying, but there was no proper analysis on the number of them that is resulted in poor performance on preparing new students better facilities, extending libraries and laboratories, and employing more professional staff as their wants and needs. The spreadsheet of Excel just acted as a database, not as a useful tool and technique for organizing, analyzing, and forecasting the future. There were no trends from the past and no predictions for the future.
Analysis and Design
Tehran University faced some difficult issues that came out to be more complex than expected. The historical data that the university needed to support the analyses, managing, and make forecasting had been buried in data sources. Data were difficult to extract since they were integrated into a single nomenclature. Furthermore, there was no organized attempt to resolve the issue for the future and normalize the situation. There was no approach to prepare more facilities according to the new students’ needs. This situation practically gave no chance to the university to compete with rival universities which had begun fast to move toward data organizing.
Helping their student to overcome competition in the labor market, meeting diverse student needs, finding adequate funds to meet constantly shifting demands were affecting all aspects of Tehran University’s educational processes (Rey, 2003). The university was losing its goal of achieving student satisfaction. Like every other organization or company, it is important to achieve customer satisfaction, in the university’s case student satisfaction.
“Thus, the complexity of these challenges requires continuous improvement of operational strategies based on accurate and timely decisions” (Luftman, 2004).
To offer better services, Tehran University is turning to data warehousing and forecasting technology. They are to prepare more facilities according to the number of a student by the next five years to offer better services to future students.
Furthermore, the University of Tehran felt the lack of exact trend analysis to forecast the number of students who potentially will select this University for their future studies so that this institution can prepare its facilities inadequate quantity and quality. The new data warehousing and forecasting technology can help resolve this issue (Luftman, 2004). This will greatly benefit both students and the university.
On a greater social scale, there is an increasing demand for higher education studying in Iran. This is due to the large number of youth people who compose a considerable part of society. Of course, the demand for Tehran University as well, as one of the highest-ranked universities in Iran, is increasing every year.
Research on this matter shows that the total demand for student places will increase from about ….. in 2003 to approximately ….. by 2020, with demand for places in Tehran University increasing from about …… places to about ……. Places that show…. A percentage from the total. Table I summarizes the analysis; a more detailed breakdown can be found in Table …… in section …..
But how does a DSS function? How does it affect the decision-making in an organization and how does it proceed? The process begins with the gathering of information on the likely total market for students of higher educational institutions. Along with this, information is also gathered on the institutional choices these potential students can make and some of the main reasons why they would likely make this choice. Other data to be gathered are those regarding the competitors and what are they offering in the market. Finally, data regarding the current status of the facilities, staff, and organization of the Tehran University are gathered. All of this information can be gathered through market researches, surveys, and questionnaires. These are the primary form of data input for a DSS. These figures are entered into the DSS which then makes a prediction, suggesting how many potential customers are likely to choose your organization (Mullins et al, 2008).
In our case how many students are to choose Tehran University. It has been our experience that the complexity, an inability to examine the logic behind decisions that have been recommended, the proprietary nature, and the cost of commercial DSS make their use in teaching less than ideal. Our solution was to produce our simple systems using Excel, Visual Basic, and Visual Basic for Applications, and this has proved to be quite successful. The paper reports on building and using Decision Support Systems in this way.
References
Luftman, J. (2004). Managing the Information Technology Resource, N. Y.: Pearson.
Mullins, J. W., Walker, Jr., O. C., & Boyd, H. W. (2008). Marketing management: A strategic decision making approach (6h ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Rey, E. D. (2003). “Competition among universities: The role of preferences for research and government finance.” Revista de Economía Pública 1: 75-80.
Tatnall, A. and S. Burgess (2007). “Experiences in Building and Using Decision-Support Systems in Postgraduate University Courses.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management 2: 33-42.