ABSTRACT: Despite the increasing interest in developing group decision support systems (GDSS), it remains unclear how communications between participants of a group problem solving process can be designed, implemented, and utilized in a computer-based distributed GDSS. This paper presents a framework for developing a Communications component for the GDSS. It supports conceptualization of a communication system as being composed of four main modules: the Group Norm Monitor, the Group Norm Filter, the Invocation Mechanism, and the individual decision support system (IDSS)-to-GDSS Document Formatter. In reference to the International Standard Organization (ISO) Open System Architecture, the three first modules are integrated in the Application layer, and the last module in the Presentation layer.
Key words and phrases: group decision support systems, distributed decision support systems, communications for decision support