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The article presents an approach to evaluate the Decision Support System applied in the InKoM project. The evaluation method is based on a scorecard framework, oriented towards Business Intelligence (BI) systems and projects dedicated to the management supporting of small and medium enterprises (SME). To design the method, known existing commercial and nocommercial BI maturity models, usability standards, and scorecard frameworks have been analyzed and adapted to SMEs area. Notably, the scorecard framework was extended to the new evaluation criteria associated with innovative knowledge-based functions created in the InKoM project, especially such as ontologies of economic and financial knowledge, and visual navigation and exploratory interface based on topic maps. The main elements of the scorecard framework and usage in InKoM of multi-criteria evaluation are illustrated and discussed in this paper. I.

The study of the usability of interfaces of all types of applications, including websites, is still a very topical research area. The heuristic method is among the methods applied to evaluate the usability of interfaces. Many researchers use Nielsen’s heuristics developed in 1996, while others propose their own heuristic sets. This article aims to present the results of a study which consisted in a comparison of original heuristic sets with Nielsen’s heuristics. The original heuristic proposals selected for the analysis concern different interface types, but they have in common is the possibility of using them to study the usability of websites. On the basis of the literature research conducted, 9 sets of heuristics were distinguished, each of which was compared with Nielsen’s heuristics. The contribution of this article consists in a tabular comparison between 9 original proposals and 10 Nielsen’s heuristics.

I. INTRODUCTIONO make optimal decisions, managers need very useful, adequate and easy to interpret information. They must analyse various economic indicators assessing the financial situation of an enterprise. Data for analyses are usually extracted from different information systems. To interpret a financial indicator, a manager should analyze relations between indicators and economic data which have influence on its value. However, available information systems concentrate mainly on providing information reflecting hierarchic relationships between examined indicators. Decision-makers evaluate semantic associations existing between them. Such an analysis of indicators can potentially ease and shorten the time needed, inter alia, to identify chances of advancement and threats of breakdown related to carrying out an activity. In order to facilitate the process of data analysis, the usage of the ontology is proposed as a model of financial knowledge about the analysis of indicators. TThe decision-makers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), in comparison to managers of big companies, may not have access to all essential strategic information. Usually financial expertise is either not available or too expensive. Big companies have at their disposal strategic consultation and possess standard procedures to solve problems in the case of essential changes in business environment. For financial and personnel reasons most SMEs cannot afford these types of facilities. It should be noted that SMEs operate in a definitely more uncertain and risky environment than big enterprises, because of a complex and dynamic market that has much more important impact on SMEs' financial situation than on big companies [1].In general, most existing Business Intelligence (BI) and Executive Information Systems (EIS) provide the functionality of data aggregation and visualization. Many reports and papers in this domain underline that decision makers expect new ICT solutions to interactively provide not only relevant and up-to-date information on the financial situation of their companies, but also explanations taking into account the contextual relationships.Our research concentrates on two essential issues: supporting decision makers in the area of analysis of economic and financial information using solutions for representing the ontology of economic and financial data (for example: topic map) 1 , and using tools for visualization of the semantic network, which is based on an ontology model of the economic knowledge and data from all relevant information systems 2 . The aim of this article is to present the conceptual design of financial ontology. The structure of the paper is as follows. In the next section, the functional schema of the system is discussed. The main domain areas of financial knowledge are presented and detailed by the topic map of the main financial indicators. Section 3 describes the process of ontology development, in particular the actual design of the ontology. A case study in section 4 illustrates an example of fi...

Summary:The article presents an approach to evaluate the BI systems applied in the InKoM project. The evaluation method is based on a scorecard framework, oriented towards Decision Support Systems and projects dedicated to the management supporting of small and medium enterprises (SME). To design the method, known existing BI maturity models, usability standards, and scorecard frameworks have been analyzed and adapted to SMEs area. Notably, the scorecard framework was extended to the new evaluation criteria associated with innovative functions created in the InKoM project, especially such as ontologies of economic and financial knowledge, and visual navigation and exploratory interface based on topic maps. The selected elements of the scorecard framework and usage in InKoM of multi-criteria evaluation are illustrated and discussed in this paper.