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Paper (refereed) Current Issues and Trends

Recommended Citation: Wehrs, W. An Applied DSS Course Using Excel and VBA: IS and/or MS? In The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference 2000, v 17 (Philadelphia): §602.

An Applied DSS Course Using Excel and VBA: IS and/or MS?

Refereed

William Wehrs    [a1] [a2]
Department of Information Systems
University of Wisconsin La Crosse    [u1] [u2]
La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA    [c1] [c2]

Instruction in Decision Support Systems within Information Systems curricula heretofore has not had a significant applied or hands-on emphasis. In particular, Information Systems faculty have not taken advantage of the availability of modern, Windows based software tools, such as spreadsheets, that can serve as a Decision Support Systems generator. As opposed to this, Management Science faculty have embraced Microsoft Excel as an instructional tool for quantitative modeling. Recently, this trend in Management Science teaching is being extended to include instruction in Visual Basic for Applications in a Decision Support Systems context. Over several years the author has been working to develop an applied Decision Support Systems class that employed Windows based software tools. Based on the rationale guiding efforts to incorporate Visual Basic for Applications on the Management Science side, the author developed and offered an applied Decision Support Systems class that included instruction and use of Excel Visual Basic for Applications. The structure of this class is discussed and compared with the Management Science approach in terms of the traditional components of a Decision Support System; models, data, and user interface. With respect to the issue of which discipline area, Information Systems or Management Science, should offer instruction in Decision Support Systems, the author suggests a joint effort in which the respective strengths of the students (and faculty) would complement one another.

Keywords: decision support systems, DSS, teaching, end-user modeling, Visual Basic for Applications, VBA, Excel, management science

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