An overview of decision table literature 1982-1995.

This report gives an overview of the literature on decision tables over the past 15 years. As much as possible, for each reference, an author supplied abstract, a number of keywords and a classification are provided. In some cases own comments are added. The purpose of these comments is to show where, how and why decision tables are used. The literature is classified according to application area, theoretical versus practical character, year of publication, country or origin (not necessarily country of publication) and the language of the document. After a description of the scope of the interview, classification results and the classification by topic are presented. The main body of the paper is the ordered list of publications with abstract, classification and comments.

How can non-technical end users effectively test their spreadsheets?

Purpose – An alarming number of spreadsheet faults have been reported in the literature, indicating that effective and easy-to-apply spreadsheet testing techniques are not available for “non-technical,” end-user programmers. The purpose of this paper is to alleviate the problem by introducing a metamorphic testing (MT) technique for spreadsheets. Design/methodology/approach – The paper discussed four common challenges encountered by end-user programmers when testing a spreadsheet. The MT technique was then discussed and how it could be used to solve the common challenges was explained. An experiment involving several “real-world” spreadsheets was performed to determine the viability and effectiveness of MT. Findings – The experiment confirmed that MT is highly effective in spreadsheet fault detection, and yet MT is a general technique that can be easily used by end-user programmers to test a large variety of spreadsheet applications. Originality/value – The paper provides a detailed discussion of some common challenges of spreadsheet testing encountered by end-user programmers. To the best of the authors knowledge, the paper is the first that includes an empirical study of how effective MT is in spreadsheet fault detection from an end-user programmer's perspective

Validating Work System Principles for Use in Systems Analysis and Design

This research validates 24 work system principles that emerged from the effort to develop the work system method, whose goal is to help business professionals understand and analyze systems in organizations in their own terms, and also to help bridge the communication gaps that have undermined IS projects and reduced business/IT alignment. The research validates the principles based on questionnaire responses submitted by six cohorts of Executive MBA students, who rated each of the work system principles on two criteria: 1) normatively, to what extent should work systems in their organizations conform to each principle, and 2) descriptively, to what extent do most existing work systems in their organizations actually conform to each principle. An analysis of the results reveals statistically significant gaps between their perceptions of normative principles and their perceptions of how well typical work systems operate in organizations. The findings are statistically significant for all 24 principles