Call for Papers for the AMCIS Mini-Track:
Spreadsheets: The Dark Matter and Dark Energy of IT
End-user Information Systems (SIGOSRA) Track
15th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS)
San Francisco, California
August 6 - 9, 2009
Mini-track website:
Description:
Until recently, the spreadsheet was the Rodney Dangerfield of corporate IT. I got little respect. Spreadsheet applications were believed to be numerous but collectively unimportant from a strategic point of view. Recently, however, pressure from compliance laws have forced organizations to examine how their key business processes really use IT. What they have almost always found were spreadsheets—large numbers of massive, complex, and mission-critical spreadsheets—all developed by end users. They found that many processes use spreadsheets predominantly for their IT, and even processes that use packaged applications often use spreadsheets for the riskiest computations, such as end-of-period adjustments in corporate financial reporting. It now appears that spreadsheets are the dark matter of IT—larger collectively than traditional central applications in terms of computerized units of core business logic, yet invisible to IT (“It’s a business side thing”) and also to corporate management. Spreadsheets are also dark in the sense that research has shown that errors in corporate spreadsheets seem to be nearly universal. In addition, spreadsheets are an enormous liability for corporate efforts to protect personally sensitive information and trade secrets. At the same time, spreadsheets seem to be the dark energy of corporate IT, spreading information technology far beyond central computing to nearly every business function. IT professionals who believe that they can solve control problems by banning spreadsheets are at best misinformed.
Possible Topics:
Human error theory applied to spreadsheet errors.
Functional nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies
Errors in spreadsheet development and testing/inspection
The effectiveness of automated spreadsheet error detection tools
Corporate experiences using spreadsheets in specific business processes
Corporate experiencing governing spreadsheets
Errors in operational spreadsheets
Spreadsheet productivity and quality
The extension of spreadsheet development functionality
Surveys of users
Surveys of spreadsheets
Surveys of corporate policies and practices
Viewing spreadsheets as appropriate development tools
Best practice recommendations backed by empirical data
Exploding spreadsheet myths with data
Mini-track Chair:
Dr. Ray Panko, Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaii
E-mail: or
Submission Process
Full paper submissions must be made electronically through the AMCIS on-line submission system by February 20th 2009. Papers should notexceed 5,000 words, including attachments.
Important Dates:
Full Papers Due: February 20, 2009
Notification of Acceptance: April 2, 2009
Camera Ready Copy Due: April 20, 2009