SPATIAL GROUP CHOICE - A SDSS TOOL FOR COLLABORATIVE SPATIAL DECISION-MAKING

Current trends in modern organizations towards flatter structures and the involvement of many stakeholder groups in solving spatial decision problems have created a need for information technology capable of su pporting collaborative spatial decision-making. Such information techn ology has developed in recent years for the computerized support of gr oup decision-making aimed at solving business problems, e.g., market s trategies, corporate planning, product development, and others. Simila r information technology to support group decisionmaking aimed at solv ing spatial decision problems, e.g., site selection, choice of environ mental and economic strategies, and urban/regional development, are no w beginning to appear in the research literature. GIS, often designed for spatial decision support, have lacked a capability to collate inte rests and interactions to support collaborative spatial decision-makin g. As a step towards addressing this void, we present a spatial decisi on support system for groups (SDSS-G) called Spatial Group Choice. A s patial problem focusing on prioritizing habitat site development is us ed as a backdrop to present the design and development issues. We disc uss the technical and social-oriented design guidelines adopted for th e development of Spatial Group Choice using a framework that character izes meetings in terms of spatial-temporal dimensionality. We then des cribe the design and implementation of Spatial Group Choice, including a 'tour' of the software, using a habitat restoration decision proble m. We conclude with issues unresolved and prospects for future develop ment.