ABSTRACT
Human service professionals need to be aware of the variety of management IT applications to communicate with IT professionals and to select applications that support their work and solve their problems. This chapter attempts to organize, clarify, and simplify terms and concepts related to management applications relevant to the human services. Table 4.1 presents and compares the five categories of management applications discussed in this chapter. Although this categorization is imprecise, and the popular literature not always consistent, it is useful for discussion purposes. Since new terms are often coined without regard for overlap with existing terms, new applications will appear in the future that will expand this classification. Categories of Management Applications Relevant to the Human Services
Term
Focus
Problem Addressed
Predominant Process
Example
Data processing (DP)
Efficiency
Processing routine transactions
Calculations
Payroll system
Management or agency information system (MIS)
Reporting
Collecting and using basic agency information
Aggregating and formatting of data
Client information system
Knowledge-based system, expert systems, etc. (KBS)
Extracting knowledge for decision making
Advising, predicting, decision making, explaining rationales
Finding patterns, reasoning from cases, presenting codified advice
Child abuse risk advisor
Decision support system (DSS)
Effectiveness
Answering “what if this were the case”
Modeling, statistical analysis
Optimum allocation of agency resources
Performance support system (PSS)
Performance
Instructing and providing advice on a subject or how to complete the task at hand
Guided instruction, interactive dialogue, monitoring user performance
Providing safety advice on the case being worked
