The SPRIG (Spreadsheet Productivity Resarch) Section, is a vibrant new section within INFORMS, with a membership of approximately 160. The section debuted at the INFORMS 2003 conference in Atlanta with two research sessions. An 80-seat room was filled beyond capacity! The audience was diversified across government, industry, and academic segments. The sessions have sparked many discussions among practitioners and academics who have found that spreadsheets are prevalent but not well enough understood.
We are seeking papers or presentations on spreadsheets and their use. Of particular interest are: research about the use of spreadsheets, large-scale spreadsheet applications which present interesting challenges to the spreadsheet creator, theoretically innovative practical uses demonstrating ways to use spreadsheets, and advanced tools for engineering spreadsheets. If you have want to give a presentation (or might want to, but want to discuss it with someone first), or are are interested in organizing a session or a panel discussion, contact the one of the cluster co-chairs at jeff.keisler@umb.edu or janet.wagner@umb.edu by April 20. Sessions will be structured after this deadline and then presenters/panel chairs will submit abstracts using the INFORMS online system.
The conference website is: http://www.informs.org/Conf/Denver2004/.
EuSpRIG 2004, sponsored by the European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group, July 15-16, 2004, Klagenfurt University, Klagenfurt, Austria. The meeting homepage is http://www.eusprig.org. Deadline for paper submission is April 10, 2004. Theme of the conference is Risk Reduction in End User Computing.
Tom Grossman, Vijay Megrotra, and Ozgur Ozluk are embarking on a research project interviewing spreadsheet users about critically important spreadsheets. Interviews will take approximately one hour, and they will maintain confidentiality. If you use a spreadsheet that is critically important to you or your organization, and are interested in participating in this study, please email Professor Vijay Mehrotra, vjm@sfsu.edu.
As part of the above research project involving critically important spreadsheets, the researchers would like to be able to quickly evaluate the size of the subjects' spreadsheets. The "ideal" method would:
Two Questions about size:
Please send your ideas and comments to Professor Ozgur Ozluk, ozgur@sfsu.edu. We will organize and share the responses with SPRIG at a future date. Thank you.
A "Nested IF" formula occurs when an IF formula is included inside another IF formula. For example,
=IF( A1=B1 , 10 , IF( A2 = B2 , 20 , 30 ) )
Nested IF formulas seem to be widely used to handle multiple contingencies in spreadsheets. I am researching how nested IF formulas are used, and exploring alternative methods of implementing equivalent logic in a spreadsheet. To advance this research, I am soliciting real-world examples of nested IF formulas. The criteria are
I welcome any examples, both simple and complex. I'm particularly interested in deep nesting. The most useful contributions would be an entire spreadsheet, because that would allow me to observe the context of the usage. Should you have an example but are uncomfortable sending the entire spreadsheet, then I would welcome a "snippet" that contains the Nested IF cell(s) and any "precedent" cells referenced by the Nested IF.
If you are willing to contribute to this research, or have any questions, please email Tom Grossman at tagrossman@usfca.edu. Thanks!
SPRIG is administratively housed in the INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) professional society. INFORMS (http://www.informs.org) provides valuable services, including web hosting, email list management, and support for SPRIG sessions at their annual conferences.
Everyone who signed up for the SPRIG email list will automatically be a member of the SPRIG section of INFORMS (but not of INFORMS itself, if not already a member). For the year 2004 this will be free of charge. In future years, SPRIG will charge nominal dues that will help defray expenses of SPRIG activities. If for some reason this does not work for you, but still want to receive the email newsletter, contact the SPRIG secretary (link provided below) and you will continue to receive it.
Please contact any one of us if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions!
This newsletter is published several times per year. Submissions are strongly encouraged. Please send ideas, suggestions, and links to the newsletter editor (roger.grinde@unh.edu). Thanks
To be added to or removed from this SPRIG email list, please visit http://www.informs.org/mailman/listinfo/sprig-section. For more information about SPRIG itself, please contact one of the officers listed above. Past newsletters are archived at http://sprig.section.informs.org/.