DSS-PSP - A decision support software for evaluating students’ performance I.E. Livieris 1 , K. Drakopoulou 2 , T. Kotsilieris 3 , V. Tampakas 1 , and P. Pintelas 2 1 Department of Computer & Informatics Engineering (DISK Lab), Technological Educational Institute of Western Greece, Greece, GR 263-34. livieris@teiwest.gr, vtampakas@teimes.gr 2 Department of Mathematics, University of Patras, Greece, GR 265-00. kdrak@math.upatras.gr, ppintelas@gmail.com 3 Department of Business Administration, Technological Educational Institute of Peloponnese, Greece, GR 241-00. tkots@teikal.gr Abstract. Prediction, utilizing machine learning and data mining tech- niques is a significant tool, offering a first step and a helping hand for educators to early recognize those students who are likely to exhibit poor performance. In this work, we introduce a new decision support software for predicting the students’ performance at the final examinations. The proposed software is based on a novel 2-level classification technique which achieves better performance than any examined single learning algorithm. Furthermore, significant advantages of the presented tool are its simple and user-friendly interface and that it can be deployed in any platform under any operating system. Keywords: Educational data mining, machine learning, student evalu- ation system, decision support software. 1 Introduction Educational Data Mining (EDM) is an essential process where intelligent meth- ods are applied to extract data patterns from students’ databases in order to discover key characteristics and hidden knowledge. This new research field has grown exponentially and gained popularity in the modern educational era be- cause of its potential to improve the quality of the educational institutions and system. The application of EDM is mainly concentrated on improving the learn- ing process by the development of accurate models that predict students’ char- acteristics and performance. The importance of EDM is founded on the fact that it allows educators and researchers to extract useful conclusions from sophisti- cated and complicated questions such as ”find the students who will exhibit poor performance ” in which traditional database queries cannot be applied [17]. Secondary education in Greece is a two-tied system in which the first three years cover general education followed by another three years of senior secondary