Information Integrity In End-user Systems

Abstract

Much research has been undertaken towards determining why programming errors occur during systems development and this has resulted in improved techniques for use by practitioners and teachers. However, little research has been done on errors occurring in end-user applications such as spreadsheets that are not developed under formal system development guidelines. The approach taken in the research reported here is that many of these errors are due to an education process that concentrates on teaching 'how to do things correctly' but ignores 'how to avoid doing things incorrectly'.Research into the development of spreadsheets has identified common errors made by end users in industry and by students whilst learning. It has been shown that there is a correspondence between industry and education in the types of errors made. From this has developed an approach which, in addition to teaching correct methods of building systems, implicitly addresses the common errors identified above.

Efficient Methods for Checking Integrity: An Integrated Spreadsheet Engineering Methodology (ISEM)

“…The proposed methodology is mainly based on the classical systems development life cycle. It addresses the widespread problem of spreadsheet errors and is an extension to published work by Chadwick et al (1997), Rajalingham & Chadwick (1998) and Rajalingham et al (1999). This methodology also helps in training users in the process of spreadsheet building.…”

“…Some of the reported cases are given in Chadwick et al (1997), Rajalingham & Chadwick (1998) and Rajalingham et al (1999). Although many of these cases are not based on formal research, they do show that spreadsheet errors are deemed serious enough to be reported in the general business and computing press.…”

“…Four research papers that have addressed this issue and analysed specific types of spreadsheet errors from business and academia are Panko and Halverson (1996), Chadwick et al (1997), Rajalingham & Chadwick (1998), and Rajalingham et al (1999).…”

“…Three important tools that can be used to aid model testing are the Microsoft Excel Audit Tool (Chadwick et al, 1997), Spreadsheet Professional forMS Excel by Spreadsheet Innovations (Rajalingham & Chadwick, 1998) and the Checklist Approach (Kruck, 1998).…”

“…The formula in the cell is first translated into a form where each cell address is replaced with its corresponding row heading and then presented in a form where each cell address is replaced with its corresponding value. Chadwick et al (1997, December) has proposed the 3A's (appropriateness, accuracy, about-right) Approach for spreadsheet auditing. This method can be used to test the spreadsheet model.…”