Web-Based Collaborative Spatial Decision Support Systems: A Technological Perspective

The rapidly expanding range of Web technology has made it possible to collaboratively make decisions over the Web. This chapter examines some of these Web technologies important to the development of collaborative spatial decision support systems, and identifies their technology impediments and strengths. The outcomes provide a basis for discussing how the existing collaborative spatial decision support systems may be redesigned to take advantage of new Web technologies, and how new collaborative spatial decision support systems may be designed and developed in this Web-based paradigm. Some discussions on selected design and development issues that are important to the development of collaborative spatial decision support systems including system design, user’s impact, and performance are presented. IDEA GROUP PUBLISHING This paper appears in the publication, Collaborative Geographic Information Systems edited by Shivanand Balram and Suzana Dragicevic © 2006, Idea Group Inc. 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200, Hershey PA 17033-1240, USA Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com ITB12918