Q- How do GDSS work?
Ans. In the GDS8, special computer software, the foilitator of each meeting will first make the agenda of the meeting, which will be projected onto a big screen that everyone can see. Then the participants will type simultaneously in their ideas of the topic of discussion on the individual microcomputers next to them. Then the computer will nort the ideas, and then the participants will then vote or comment. on which ide they like or they disiks. In the course of the whole meeting, GDSS stores, categorizes and prints out all the ideas, comments and vote tallies, so that each of the meeting participants will get a summary of the meeting when it ends..
What so special about GDSS is that it enables meeting participants to simultaneously "talk", when the computer sorts and sends ideas to each of the terminals, all at the same time. That saves a tremendous amount of time, because all these are done electronically instead of manually, and the time saved will enable participants to spend more time manipulating and expressing their ideas. This can consequently increase the productivity and efficiency of the group. The time-consuming benefit also has an added bonus: when productivity and efficiency in meetings increase, it is likely that the team spirit acan be consolidated, resulting in an increase of the strength of binding among team members. In addition, under GDSS no one. can dominate the meeting and this allows GDSS to provide an anonymous scheme, so that whatever one types in the terminal (i.e., your opinion) will be protected. Under such circumstance, no one really knows who is typing what. In the worst case, we might say "some ideas" are dominating the meeting but this is perfectly fine because and as a matter of fact an aim of the GDSS i.e., to help meeting participants voice their opinions from an idea-oriented mindset. For example, simply because you have a prejudice against person A does not mean that you are going to reject the idea being proposed in the meeting, because you do not know who is proposing that idea. Besides, this anonymity scheme also helps those team members who are shy to voice opinions to be more honest.
However, whether this anonymity is good or not can be very controversial. The success of meetings supported by GDSS depends largely on the conduct of the participants. If people are taking advantage of the anonymity system by typing obscene words or foul languages, this system may be banned for the good of the organization.
The design issues of group decision support systems are changing because of the Web. Researchers focused for many years on what tools to provide and how to collect and aggregate input. Those issues are still important, but I think output display and "mixed" meetings (some participants are meeting at the same time and other will participate at different times) are creating new design challenges.
In trying to arrive at a decisive meaning for GDSS, the following also contributed;
(a) DeSanctis and Gallupe have stated that a GDSS is "an interactive computers-based system to facilitate the solution of semi structured and unstructured tasks by a group that have joint responsibility for performing it."
(b) Dennis, et al. sometmes use the term Electronic Meeting System for essentially the same systems. The move towards group DSSS stems from awareness that decision-making is often a group phenomenon, and thus computer support for communication and the integration of multiple inputs in DSSS is required. In the same way, the interest in GDSS stems in part from the increasing interest in the area of technological support for groups, which can be seen in a variety of other research areas e.g., human-computer interaction (HCL), computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), and organizational design in recent years. While there are a variety of different kinds of GDSS systems in existence, both experimental and commercial, our focus here should be on a class of GDSSS often referreed to as Electronic Meeting Systems (EMSs).
Some GDSS's have a facilitator managing the computer with the group viewing a public screen displaying the debate, problem definition, and agreements of the group as it negotiates strategies. Others involve members of the group in the direct input of data that forms part of the problem definition-data that is then used bythe group employing electronic voting and other organizing devices.
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