Talk Like a Pirate Day

YAARRR 


'tis truly a glorious daaay, fer it be Talk Like a Pirate Day! 
May yer ships foil the Krakken, and yer hulls be filled wit' Boooteh!


http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html


(This roughly translates to "Hi Guys, hope you're all having a nice weekend, and the assignment is going well!)


Cheers,
Reza

The Monash DSS Laboratory Twitter Feed

For those of you who tweet or have an RSS feed reader, you might like to follow the Monash DSS Laboratory twitter feed (http://twitter.com/dsslab). The DSS Lab is a group of researchers (including yours truly) and research students looking at decision support, business intelligence and data warehousing. The feed will include updates on new posts to the Monash BI Blog, interesting news and notification of events. You can use it to stay in touch with the teaching staff, or to keep in touch once you graduate.

Pie Charts: "Defeat in Circular Form"

Building decision support systems nearly always involves the visual presentation of information, so knowing what works and what doesn't from a data visualisation perspective is important.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned in passing that pie charts are bad, mmkay? Here's a post from the excellent blog of business intelligence consultancy Juice Analytics describing some of the reasons why pie charts suck hard.

Also see this, this and this (all via the boys at Juice).

Assignment 1 Submission - Reza's Students

Hi Guys,

For all my students trying to get their Assignment 1 in to me today, here are your options:

1- You should be attending the tutorial and handing it to me.
2- If you miss your tutorial, I will be in G109 till around 6PM today, so come and find me, and I will still take your submission.
3- If you miss me today, then come in tomorrow and hand it in to the Faculty front desk, and they will stamp it and place it in the Unit box.
4- If you have grounds for special consideration, you MUST seek approval from Rob Meredith, and provide necessary documentation to him.

5% penalty applies per day for late submissions.
Do NOT forget a signed assignment coversheet.

Good Luck
Reza

Atomic Unlocked 2010

Hi Guys,

For the geeks in our unit (myself included), here is a nice little event coming up @ Monash next month:

http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/unlocked/

Cheers,
Reza

Data Visualisation for Decision Support

As Reza posted down below, the term 'DSS' encompasses a wide range of systems, from small throw-away spreadsheets to large enterprise-scale reporting systems. The one thing they all have in common is that they help people answer questions through the collation and presentation of information.

The field of data visualisation deals with the graphical presentation of information, and while we're all familiar with pie charts and other graphs, data visualisation experts can help tell a story with data in a range of ways. DSS developers need to be familiar with data visualisation concepts: what works, what doesn't work and the idea that data isn't just a thing, it's the building blocks we use to understand a problem better and identify solutions.

People like Edward Tufte and Stephen Few are well know experts in the field, but a presentation by Hans Rosling a couple of years ago set the field on fire with his innovative data presentation techniques:

Cheers,

Rob.

Pre - Assignment 1 Podcast

Hi Guys,

Please have a quick listen to the podcast Rob, Pam and I did on Friday for you:

http://podcast.infotech.monash.edu.au/fit2011/?p=episode&name=2010-08-30_episode_7.mp3

It should hold some helpful advice for completing the assignment.

Good luck,
Reza

Computerworld

Hi Guys. Visit this link for DSS and BI stuff:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/72327/Decision_Support_Systems

Examples of DSS in Global Enterprise

Hi Guys,


For those asking about actual examples of DSS, here's a little link I found:

http://dssresources.com/faq/index.php?action=artikel&id=114

You quickly realize how generic the term DSS can be, because it encompasses so much variety.

Cheers,
Reza

Shuttle Challenger Video

Hi Guys,

For those of you interested in the video of the Challenger disaster, here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JOjcDFtBE

Cheers,
Reza

Interview Protocol

Hi Guys,

So by now you are all getting started on your preparation for Assignment 1.  You're quite lucky this semester, as Rob is asking each fo you to interview only 1 person.  In past semesters we've asked each student to conduct 3 or 4 interviews.  On the other hand, this means you will have the opportunity to be more in-depth and detailed in your analysis and interpretation.

The first thing you're all worrying about is the interview protocol. There are many ways to break down an interview protocol.  Here is one example I found online:

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/projects/edres/changingfaces/protocol/practical.htm

From my own research experience @ Monash, I had to do a number of things like:

·    ethics approval from the institute
·    individual consent from participants I was interviewing
·    explanatory statement describing the purpose and outline of the research
·    structured questions based on a particular framework I was using for my research
·    transcribing the raw data I recorded
·    follow ups to clarify any uncertainties

 For the purpose of this assignment, I suggest at the very least a brief explanatory statement, followed by your question sets.  Whether you structure your questions around the modeling framework, the biases you've read up on, a combination of both, or some other format is your choice.

You will need to include your interview protocol, and any raw data you gathered in the interview, in the appendix of your work.

That should be enough to get you underway.  Make sure you've read Arnott's paper, A Taxonomy of Decision Biases:

http://moodle.monash.edu/file.php/545/Arnott_Bias_Taxonomy_Tech_Report.pdf

Don't freak out about it being 55 pages, the last 15 pages are references, and there are lots of diagrams and tables taking up lots of space.  It's an easy read, I promise.

Good luck,
Reza

The Oil Game

Hi Guys,

For those of you who want a better overview of what the oil game is all about in Week 3, head on over to the OPEC Website:

http://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/25.htm

The link above will show you the countries involved.

Although the exercise in Week 3 is a simple one, designed to show you the complexities of decision making, it is worth noting that decisions can have real consequences.

For example, if you ever get a chance to watch the mini series, House of Saddam,

http://www.hbo.com/movies/house-of-saddam/index.html

you will see one of the possible outcomes of playing the oil game. There is a part in the film, where as a result of one country producing more oil that what they promised, another country invades them, leading into war.

Real decisions have real consequences.
Enjoy the tutorial,
Reza

Nominal Group Technique

Hi Guys,

For those of you who got into the NGT exercises from Week 2, and wanted to know more about its application, I dug up this link. It's an easy read, and gives you a bit more insight into NGT:

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~mallakl/courses/ime402/NGTarticle.pdf

Enjoy,
Reza

Birth of a Blog

Reza: "Okay okay okay, quit twisting my arm Rob"
Rob: "You gonna start that blog for DSS?"
Reza: "Fine, fine, I start your darn tootin blog for DSS"
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Hello World!