Technology Brief from

Red Rock Educational Publications, Inc.

The Classroom Performance Assessment (CPA) could be classified as a Decision Support System.  Decision Support Systems are interactive (mostly computer-based programs and technologies) systems intended to help decision makers identify, structure, and/or solve semi-structured and unstructured problems and make choices among alternatives.  Decision Support Systems help decision makers use and manipulate data; apply checklists and heuristics; and build and use mathematical models.

It is an "informational application" (in distinction to an "operational application" that would collect data in the course of a normal business operation).

Decision Support Systems are designed to help make routine decisions, monitor and control processes, and aid or assist decision makers in semi-structured and/or non-routine decision situations.  A decision support system may present information graphically and may include an expert system or artificial intelligence (AI).  It may be aimed at business executives or some other group of knowledge workers.

From the users’ point of view, a Decision Support System must fulfill most of the following objectives:
* Support decision making for hard or under-specified problems.
* Support decision making at all levels of operations, providing each level with the desired degree of detail.
* Support all phases of decision making: collecting and processing raw data; devising, developing and analyzing courses of action; and recommending the course of action that best fits the users’ specifications.
* Support a variety of decision making processes that fit the decision maker’s cognitive style such as primarily factual or more intuitive.
* Above all the DSS must be understandable and easy to use.

The goal is that information presented must be clear and organized in a logical manner, layered in accordance with the level of detail and interest.

That is also the goal of this decision support system, the  Classroom Performance Assessment.  It is designed to move large amounts of unorganized disparate information into a logical somewhat structured data form that allows skilled educational based decision makers to format a plan and to articulate that plan in a means that will translate into an "Individual Education Plan".


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