|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
IPSS™
IPSS is a unique population projection and life table program for the Macintosh. Students in the social sciences, market researchers, and government and city planners all gain a better understanding of population dynamics when using IPSS. Plotting the changing demographics in a market area, studying the demographic implications of a region's growing or declining population, or forecasting that portion of product demand driven by changing population composition has never been easier. Charting the likely market conditions under varying demographic assumptions is easy to do. IPSS success in group settings lies in its ability to quickly generate demographically appropriate graphics when illustrating population trends. When IPSS animates a series of population pyramids, for example, the audience quickly grasps population change and what those changes are likely to mean for future sales, school enrollments, and social changes. Preparing population projections takes a great deal of patience and time. Projections require large amounts of data: beginning population counts by age and sex, as well as, age-specific fertility, mortality, and migration rates. Combine those data requirements with multiple rate schedules and multiple runs to test various demographic assumptions and it's easy to see why a population projection assignment can quickly overwhelm any analyst. IPSS' wealth of input features makes data entry and editing a snap. The user can copy and paste data from the clipboard, enter it graphically using the mouse, click on an icon, or simply use the keyboard. Output features include graphics that can be pasted directly to a spreadsheet or wordprocessor and automatically converted to numerical data, population pyramids (absolute and percent), bar and line graphs, Lexis surface, 100 percent surface, or 3-D population pyramid (created by the authors), along with numerous tabular reports.
What others have said about IPSS
Reviewer: Robert I. Kabacoff, Nova University "IPSS is a sophisticated and complex program whose strength lies in its ease of use.... The program is remarkably interactive, allowing the user to change basic assumptions (initial population estimates, fertility, mortality, migration, and user specified special rates) and immediately see the impact on projected statistics. This reviewer found it possible to run complex and detailed projections using nothing but the mouse!... IPSS greatest strength may lie with its carefully fashioned Macintosh interface.... For a social scientist with access to a Macintosh computer, this is the program to have when performing population projections."
Reviewer: William H. Frey, Population Studies Center, Univ. of Michigan "IPSS is a powerful but extremely user-friendly projection-simulation package, featuring dazzling graphics, easy data input, and useful modeling options. It can be used for research and presentation in a variety of settings and comes bundled with demographic data for the 50 U.S. states and selected countries.... No other software matches IPSS' graphics.... The excellent documentation includes useful tutorials."
Reviewer: Teresa A. Sullivan, The University of Texas "Although IPSS was rather consciously designed for business planners, market researchers, and other applied social scientist, it is a versatile program with great potential for the classroom.... As with so many Macintosh applications, this one shines in the use of graphics.... I was playing around with the program at home when my nine-year-old walked into the room and watched me construct some age-sex pyramids. We ended up having a little discussion on fertility and mortality. It was clear that the graphics had caught his attention and led him immediately into issues of dynamics. This is the reaction that many demographers would like to elicit among undergraduates but too rarely achieve. My son pronounced IPSS to be 'cool.' Although I have not tried out IPSS in the classroom, I plan to try it in my next undergraduate course to see if they express the same kind of enthusiasm.... The principle classroom use of this program would be courses in demography or population. It would also be useful for developing modules to use in the introductory course, either for the chapter on population or perhaps as part of a demonstration of macro-sociological concepts. It could also provide substantial benefits for a course on general research methods. Many of the demographic tools demonstrated in this program also have wider applicability in sociology." Reviewer: Allan Schaiberg, Department of Sociology, Northwestern Univ. "This relative ease of use is also matched with a professional demographic quality of the algorithms used in the package. ...this is a technically sound package, with enormous potential for a variety of pedagogical uses." Reviewer: George Sadowsky, Computing and Networking "Projection times are short... to allow rapid interaction between user and program. The IPSS manual is well written."
Reviewer: Jerry Pournelle "Every now and then I get a program like IPSS that makes me want to drop everything and spend a couple of weeks playing with my computer... It's elegant, easy to use, and useful. If you have any interest in population, get this for your Mac. Highly Recommended!"
|
