A Dempster-Shafer based approach to technology assessment applied to selection of software packages

The Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence is applied to the technology assessment problem of selecting computer software. The decision maker must select from available alternatives, none of which exactly satisfies the ideal. The relative importance of attribute elements is determined through pairwise comparisons of the elements by the decision maker and a ratio scale quantification method. The valuation of the attribute elements for existing alternatives is determined through expert evaluation of the degree to which each element is contained in each alternative. Then evidence for as well as evidence against selection of a particular software package is combined