Interpreting environmental computational spreadsheets
Martine G. de Vos, Vu · VU Research Portal · 2014
Abstract. Environmental computational spreadsheets are important tools in supporting decision making. However, as the underlying concepts and relations are not made explicit, the transparency and re-use of these spreadsheets is severely limited. The goal of this project is to provide a semi-automatic methodology for constructing the underlying knowl-edge level model of environmental computational spreadsheets. We de-velop and test this methodology in a limited number of case studies. Our methodology combines heuristics on spreadsheet layout and for-mulas, with existing methods from computer science. We evaluate our constructed model with both the original developers and their peers. 1 Problem Statement Current environmental issues, like climate change and biodiversity loss, are uni-versal in their scale and long-term in their impact, their mechanisms are complex, and empirical data are scarce [1–3]. In addition there is an urgent need to find strategies to cope with these issues, and political pressure on the research com-