Some thoughts on quality issues of end-user developed systems
SIGCPR '85 Proceedings of the twenty-first annual conference on Computer personnel research
The management of end user computing
Communications of the ACM
An investigation of the information center from the user's perspective
ACM SIGMIS Database
WEUSE I Proceedings of the first workshop on End-user software engineering
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In their study of user managers' systems needs, Alloway and Quillard surveyed 529 managers to determine whether current systems supported their information needs. Managers reported that only 44 percent of the installed base of applications systems, most of which were transactions processing systems, were useful. Inquiry systems, which enabled managers to query data bases and to generate reports, and data analysis systems, which provided opportunities for modeling, simulation, and statistical analysis, were overwhelmingly favored by the managers surveyed.The findings also showed that the invisible backlog, composed of systems which users needed but which had not yet been approved as projects, consisted primarily of inquiry and analysis systems. The invisible backlog for analysis systems was 784 percent greater than the known backlog of approved development projects, demonstrating a significant shift away from the need for transactions processing type systems of the past (Alloway and Quillard, 1983).Users have begun to satisfy these systems needs by developing applications using fourth generation languages and microcomputer software. The actual growth of end-user computing within organizations has been overwhelming. In 1970, end-user computing at one Xerox component required very little capacity but by 1980 had grown to almost 40 percent of capacity, an increase of 20 times over the decade, with an expected increase to 75 percent of the total workload by 1990 (EDP Analyzer, 1983). Without question, the emergence of user development means a new style of computing which raises a number of research questions.