An interactive decision support system for energy policy analysis

Reviewer: John L. Bennett

Since 1981, the National Audubon Society has sponsored the development of an interactive computer system implemented on a Wang VS. The system is intended to make technical data available to a subject expert seated at a console, so that the expert can apply insights and intuition to interpretation of data displayed in a variety of formats. The Society sponsors the work on the following assumption: work with models projecting future US energy demand under different public policy alternatives can lead to beneficial reduced energy production and use. Medsker describes how DSS concepts have been used in this application. The reader familiar with this area can easily relate this brief report to much prior work. One example is the Proceedings of a conference on decision support systems [1]. A second source is the 415 item bibliography appearing in Sage's paper [2]. The design guidelines offered by the author read more like requirements (“enable users to filter information”; “users should be able to incorporate feedback”), rather than providing specific guidance for making decisions intended to meet requirements. Apparently, Wang VS BASIC has good support for building menus and for displaying data in tables, but I found no evidence of data displayed in graphical formats. The comments in the author's summary and his concluding section indicate he was not aware of references such as those cited above. These provide an access point for answers to the questions he poses about case examples, more detailed guidelines, and experience in responding to changing requirements for applications such as this. Medsker's paper will be useful to those monitoring DSS applications.