A Communication Platform for Group Decision Support System: Based Web Services and Multicriteria Method

2. Related Work

In the domain of decision support, there is a variety of systems designed to treat different types of decision-making. However, the decision support is grouped into two broad categories: (i) The single-actor decision support - A decision-maker forms an opinion based on the information available to him (not the expertise), as well as his personal orientations (values), and (ii) The multi-actor decision support - Several actors decide with together on an issue, with personal views often divergent compared to others, which often requires the negotiation process.

In the context of single-actor decision support, several decision support systems in TP (Territory Planning) have caught attention. Joering (1997) propose system MEDUSAT for locating the site of a waste treatment plant in Tunisia. MEDUSAT combines a GIS tool allowing the creation of homogenous areas determined from spatial data and common land (constituting a similarity index); these areas constitute a set of possible solutions. Bensaid et al. (2007) use Multicriteria analysis as a tool for decision making for spatial localization of areas under heavy human pressure. In the same area, Čančer (2012) introduces the use of the 5Ws & H technique, which is the creative problem-solving technique based on who, what, when, where, why and how questions, for the establishing of the criteria weights in multi-criteria decision-making. A case study was presented at the University of Naama, Algeria in the same work. Various decision support systems rich in spatial tools and multicriteria analysis methods have been developed for management and decision making in territorial problems Hamadouche (2011). All these systems integrate in various levels multicriteria analysis tools coupled with GIS, but they consider the criteria as independent and unable to model any interaction between them.