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Collaborative Decision Making For Site Development Analysis

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zakaria Mat Arof & Hamlussalam Md. Dali
Department Survey Science and Geomatics
Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying
University Technology MARA, Arau Campus, Perlis, Malaysia
Ph: (04) – 9874251, Fax: (04) – 9874241,
Email: salam@perlis.uitm.edu.my



1.0 Introduction
Decision making is a process. It has been practiced by many organizations with different scales to solve different problems. Several approaches have been used to suit with the local needs, requirements and surrounding conditions and limitation.

The main issue in the decision making process is basically towards the definition and classification of characteristics (Janskowski, 1995). Group discussions become a common practice in decision making. It seems that direct interaction among group members are very significant towards a harmonic and balance solutions. Group interactions are sometimes become not effective due to several human constrains such as status-quo, administrative post, bureaucracy, office location and self interest among the group member. Thus personal jurisdictions can sometimes play a dominant role in decision making.

Spatial information are gathered from analogue maps. Problems are sometimes arise from the maps itself as some maps content are good while others were compiled from a poor sources. Lack of map interpretation skill and the ability to understand map content will further worsening the situation. Due to the lack of skill in map interpretation, it will take longer time to collect and analyse the information presented. This problem will become more complex while dealing with maps with different theme, sources, scales and projections. These weaknesses will limit the capability of gathering and integrating valuable information thus affecting the efficiency of decision makers.

Drastic and tremendous development in information technology especially in Geographical Information System (GIS) has consequently become a useful intellectual resources to support decision making. However GIS is just an application tool to support spatial and non-spatial data handling with action-oriented database concept and need to be customized to become more specific towards the need of the customers (Mahindar, 1994). GIS can provide a greater impact to the decision making process which are becoming more challenging with the advent of modern technology.

Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) which has been developed by integrating GIS and DSS (Decision Support System) is a good example of a tailored application development. This paper intend to study and evaluate the integration concept between GIS and DSS and introduce the KOLA Systems as an effective tool in the decision making process involving spatial data in Malaysia utilizing group or collaborative approaches.

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