The validity of the data and assumptions made in the Grubesic paper is
not the topic I intended to discuss, I did not write the paper and I am
not the person that can answer questions or criticisms. I can
sympathize with the difficulties of getting good data for the analysis
that was endevoured, and the problems of publishing timely results. We
found similar problems with the Boardwatch data (well noted in several
posts) when doing related analysis, but I do believe that the paper does
make an interesting contribution with the techniques it used - different
from the assumptions and data. This is probably the biggest disconnect
between the academic and operations community, in academia a greater
value is placed on the analytice techniques created, and the data is a
means to test those techniques or tools. What happens outside the ivory
tower is often an after thought. This is a very general statement and
varies considerably by discipline.
Regardless it becomes a problem when real world data is being used to
inform the policy creation process. This is the unusual situation we
find ourselves in, and any and all feedback, commentary, and discussion
is very valuable even flames. Hopefully we have a chance to get some in
person come the February meeting. This thread has pointed out the
pitfalls of research, but it would be interesting to discuss ways that
cooperative efforts could be built to avoid these pitfalls.