Automating Hypermedia for Decision Support

Abstract

Many ‘first generation’ hypermedia systems were designed to support applications, which do not require the dynamic and general characteristics necessary for our domain --- decision support systems (DSS). The heart of our research is a dynamic model of hypermedia incorporating virtual structures and computation, which we call generalized hypermedia. Generalized hypermedia broadens and automates the ‘static’ or non-virtual notion of first generation hypermedia for a knowledge-based DSS shell. The shell provides a hypermedia-style interface for navigating among DSS application models, data and reports. Such a shell should support applications in a variety of fields, e.g., engineering, manufacturing, finance, and therefore must provide hypermedia support as general, system-level functionality Generalized hypermedia superimposes a hypermedia network on a DSS application, generating all hypermedia nodes, links and link markers dynamically from the application's standard, non-hypermedia knowledge base. In this paper we demonstrate how automating hypermedia can enhance decision making with a DSS. We describe generalized hypermedia and discuss the challenges presented to it by a dynamic, real-time environment.