Research Issues Involving Hypertext in Decision Support Systems

The term hypertext describes a computerized system which allows the user to browse through a network of nodes, each of which is commonly a collection of text but which may be quantitative models or other entities. A review o f DSS research and applications frameworks in the literature reveals several areas where further research may be valuable in identifying the usefulness and appropriate role of hypertext in DSS. These issues involve user characteristics, decision and problem characteristics, situational and organizational factors, and technological factors. Some areas which appear to be worthy of further investigation include hypertext's support of the human brain's hemispheric specialization, its isomorphism with generalized problem solving paradigms such as the state-space approach, and extensions of the basic model whereby nodes become executable decision models. In addition, hypertext may be self-applied by DSS researchers as a vehicle to simulate and study various user interface techniques and as a process tracing laboratory.