[dundee] New Government Statistical Data Repository Web Site

[Robert Ladyman]

Ah...spreadsheets, the bane of an auditor's life: particularly as spreadsheet 
programs tend to be active agents and will even modify data that is just being 
'stored' (sic).

Warning: own trumpet blowing here....
http://www.file-away.co.uk/spreadsheets.html

Have a look at pages 23 and 24 for why they are bad. The error rate is 
staggeringly high. 

Ray Panko's work (http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/SSR/index.htm) is 
particularly interesting, especially the paper "What we know about spreadsheet 
errors" and his point that the high error rates in spreadsheets are consistent 
with (human) error rates in other domains.

Interestingly, one of us was at an MHRA seminar for the last 2 days where 
spreadsheets were discussed (and not favourably), especially as they tend not 
to be listed as IT systems in SOPs, etc. (Hint, if you can't use it with your 
PC if you pull the plug, then it's an IT system and needs to be listed).

I also note that none of the files at isdscotland have MD5 (or similar) 
checksums to allow for detection of accidental changes by readers of the files 
or active changes by their spreadsheet application.


RJL



> 2010/1/22 Marcel Hecko <marcel at shmu.org.uk>
> 
> >  The next step would be to provide all the information in an open format.
> > Just a very quick (random) search for some statistics pointed me to this
> > page with XSL data only, which is kind of sad.
> > http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/1918.html
> 
>  True Marcel, but the NHS uses Microsoft Office for storing research data
> and documents (or a database), which is why I have an XP partition as my
> wife is involved in NHS research.  At least the XSL data can be viewed
>  using OpenOffice Calc which means she can look at the data using Fedora.
> 
> Gordon
> 
> > Dissapointing :(
> >
> > m.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > dundee GNU/Linux Users Group mailing list
> > dundee at lists.lug.org.uk  http://dundeelug.org.uk
> > https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dundee
> > Chat on IRC, #tlug on irc.lug.org.uk
> 

-- 

Robert Ladyman
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