Expert Choice Version 8.0
Decision making software and books are
available from:

Expert Choice Inc.
4922 Ellsworth Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
phone (412) 682-3844
fax (412) 682-7008

Two models are included with this downloaded 
Trial version, Employee and Invest.  More models 
are available in the file MODELS.EXE.

Run Expert Choice
After downloading these files, type EC to start Expert Choice.
You also need to add the Expert Choice directory to the PATH 
statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, for example PATH 
C:\EC8.  Make sure that the FILES statement in your 
CONFIG.SYS file has a value of at least 5.

Create a New Model
From the Retrieve/Make Model screen that lists all of your 
models, type the name of your new model in the entry box at the 
top of the screen and press <Enter>.  You will be asked if you 
want to create a new model.  Select Yes. The program asks you to 
define your goal for the new model.

Define Goal and Insert Criteria
At the goal definition line at the bottom of the screen, type your 
goal definition and press <Enter>.  This inserts a goal node at the 
top of the screen.  To insert your criteria nodes below the goal, 
select Edit, Insert.  Node names are allowed eight letters along 
with a sixty-five character definition for each.  After entering all 
of your criteria, press <Escape> to delete the last unwanted node 
appearing.  At this point, the criteria all have equal weights.  To 
insert sub-criteria beneath the criteria, select Edit, Insert and 
follow the same procedure as above.  Your model does not have to 
be symmetrical.  Sub-criteria may be below some nodes, but not 
below others.

Insert Alternatives and Replicate Across Model
Move to the parent node under which you want to insert the 
alternatives and select Edit, Insert.  After inserting the 
alternatives below that node, select Edit, Replicate and replicate 
the alternatives to all Leaves.  This copies your alternatives across 
the bottom level of the entire model.

Enter Judgments 
To evaluate your alternatives first, and then your criteria, move to 
the parent node of one set of alternatives and select Compare, 
Preference.  You are judging which alternatives are more 
preferred with respect to a certain criterion.  If you have at least 
three alternatives, you will be asked preliminary questions for 
each comparison, and then will be taken to the verbal comparison 
mode.  To skip the preliminary questions select S.  In the verbal 
mode (scale of Equal to Extreme), move the arrow on the verbal 
scale using the Up and Down arrow keys, or point and click with 
the mouse.  To invert the dominance of the factors, press the I key 
or move the arrow down two levels below Equal.  This will flip 
the dominance of the alternatives.  Press <Enter> after you finish 
each judgment.  At the end of the process you will be shown the 
priorities for the comparisons and your Inconsistency Ratio at the 
bottom of the screen.  If the inconsistency is less than .1, press 
<End>  to record these priorities.  Otherwise, select Compare 
from the bottom of the screen, select the Numerical comparison 
and follow the steps in Improve Inconsistent Judgments below.

To compare criteria instead of alternatives,  select Compare, 
Importance and follow the same comparison procedure.  The 
only difference between Importance and Preference is in how you 
perceive the comparison.

It is also possible to make comparisons in numerical or graphical 
representations.  From any comparison screen, select Numerical 
or Graphical from the menu at the bottom

Improve Inconsistent Judgments
In the numerical mode, press <Alt> and 1 simultaneously.  This 
brackets your most inconsistent judgment in the matrix.  Press the 
? key to have Expert Choice suggest a value to improve your 
consistency.  If you want to change the value of the judgment, type 
the number you wish to change the bracketed value to and select 
<End> to record.  You will be shown the priorities again with the 
improved Inconsistency Ratio.  If you want to leave the most 
inconsistent judgment as is, press <Alt> 2 to view the second 
most inconsistent judgment, <Alt> 3 for the third, etc.  Select 
<End> to calculate the priorities and get the inconsistency ratio. 
Once are satisfied with your judgments and the inconsistency ratio 
is below .1, select <End> to record the judgments.

Synthesis
After entering judgments for all of your criteria, sub-criteria, and 
alternatives, and all of the nodes in the model are weighted, select 
Synthesis, Set Mode from the main menu. Follow the on-screen 
instructions to set the synthesis mode.

Sensitivity Analysis
To perform sensitivity on your synthesized results, select any of 
the four sensitivity graphs from the Graphs menu.

