Keywords
dss, users' acceptance, implementation gap
Start Date
1-7-2008 12:00 AM
Abstract
For long time Decision Support Systems (DSS) have been believed convenient tools for transferring scientific knowledge, ready-to-use and free of political interference, onto policy-making agendas. The concept seemed to appeal to scientists and policy makers alike. The former embraced DSS as a way to get their voice heard, the later were believed to benefit from the easy-to-use interface to intricate models. The enthusiasm had not been shared by all scientists. Many complained about the limited uptake of the tools and their conditional suitability to address practical policy issues, messy and intractable as they often are. Different reasons were suspected for this drawback. In this paper we look into different pieces of evidence to find out what scientists, policy makers and users think of DSS, their limitation and hurdles which need to be overcome to put DSS at work. These sources include results of expert workshop, e-surveys targeted to DSS developers and users, interviews with scientific officers from the funding agencies, review of the EU FP Working Programmes and the databases of funded projects, and review of the scientific papers dealing with DSS.
A note on attitudes towards and expectation from the Decision Support Systems
For long time Decision Support Systems (DSS) have been believed convenient tools for transferring scientific knowledge, ready-to-use and free of political interference, onto policy-making agendas. The concept seemed to appeal to scientists and policy makers alike. The former embraced DSS as a way to get their voice heard, the later were believed to benefit from the easy-to-use interface to intricate models. The enthusiasm had not been shared by all scientists. Many complained about the limited uptake of the tools and their conditional suitability to address practical policy issues, messy and intractable as they often are. Different reasons were suspected for this drawback. In this paper we look into different pieces of evidence to find out what scientists, policy makers and users think of DSS, their limitation and hurdles which need to be overcome to put DSS at work. These sources include results of expert workshop, e-surveys targeted to DSS developers and users, interviews with scientific officers from the funding agencies, review of the EU FP Working Programmes and the databases of funded projects, and review of the scientific papers dealing with DSS.
