![]() ![]() One field study notes that errors in spreadsheets can lead to bad decision making amongst business managers and major monetary losses. ![]() If a spreadsheet with an error is reused or shared, the error is propagated amongst the different users. However, very little research has been done on identifying and reporting the differences between two related spreadsheets. Much of the previous research on spreadsheets has focused on ways to detect and correct errors. We discuss one particularly promising area of future research in Section 6, and finish with conclu- sions in Section 7. In Section 5 we present an evaluation of the SheetDiff tool on several examples. The algorithm for inferring spreadsheet changes is then described in Section 4. ![]() In Section 3 we illustrate the issues involved in identifying and presenting spreadsheet changes with a small example. The rest of this paper is structured as follows. The changes are shown “in place”, which supports not only the easy identification of what has changed, but also where the changes have occurred. SheetDiff shows the changes that are needed to get from one spreadsheet to the other. In this paper we describe SheetDiff, a tool that we have developed for identifying changes between two spreadsheets and presenting them in a succinct form. This better understanding supports users in modifying spreadsheets correctly. Each of these examples demonstrate how spreadsheet change inference allows users to put the changes in context and better understand what the spreadsheet is doing and how it is evolving. ![]() If several versions of the same spreadsheet exist, these can be compared to see the incremental change of the spreadsheet in each version, and these changes taken together provide a greater understanding of the spreadsheet and its evolution. Finally, in addition to comparing just two versions of a spreadsheet, change inference can also reveal trends and patterns about the evolution of a spreadsheet over time. Any cells containing the incorrect formula or result would be shown, and the teacher could use this to mark the ones that are incorrect. oracle could then be compared a students result to determine similarity. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2023
Categories |