An Integrated Decision Support System for Planning and Measuring Institutional Efficiency. AIR 1992 Annual Forum Paper.

This paper presents a model for obtaining and organizing managment information for decision making in university planning, developed by the Bureau for Management Information of the University of South Africa. The model identifies the fundamental entities of the university as environment, finance, physical facilities, assets, personnel, and students. The model proposes a computerized decision support system which analyzes the mathematical relationships between different components of the system. The support system's data flow plan is presented as a plan that can be constructed independently within each entity, that generates output that can be used by another model as input, and that enables the measurement of variables in one submodel compared to another. The model emphasizes integrated scenario construction, in which a single run can potentially produce outputs of enrollment projections and projections of the needs for personnel, physical facilities, and finances. The paper describes the hardware and software requirements; the structure of files in the system; and the application of the model to enrollment, personnel planning, physical planning, long-term physical planning, and subsidy planning. A final section treats the establishment and use of efficiency measurements. Included are 15 figures and 6 references. (JB)