NEWS

Welcome New Members!

Hopefully, we've gotten to welcome each of you in person either at our orientation sessions last week or at the SSCC Help Desk office. If we haven't though, please drop by Social Sciences 4226 to pick up a packet of information and to sign up for a short computer orientation session. (School of Education members should visit with their department's Technology Support Contact.) During orientation, SSCC staff will talk to you about your computing needs and try to identify which of the many SSCC services and computing resources will be most useful to you. This makes it time well spent even for the most experienced computer users.

SSCC's Fall Training Schedule

SSCC's Fall training schedule is now available on SSCC's training web pages. We have classes in Stata, R, NVivo, Matlab, WordPress, and Linux. SAS and SPSS classes will be scheduled later this semester. Remember that all SSCC training sessions require preregistration.

Stata 12 Installed

Stata 12 has been installed on all SSCC servers. Highlights of the new version include mi impute chained, which combines essentially all the capabilities of Patrick Royston's ice command with the advantages of Stata's mi framework, and new tools for structural equation modeling, including path diagrams. Another minor but welcome new feature is automatic memory management--you'll never need to type set mem again.

Stata Corp. upgraded the SSCC's Stata SE licenses to two processor Stata MP, the multiprocessor version of Stata. This improves performance significantly for most tasks. The SSCC also has a small number of licenses for four processor Stata MP, which is more expensive but even faster. Use Stata MP for everyday work, and Stata MP4 when you have a substantial do file to run.

SSCC staff will teach a "What's New in Stata 12" class later in the semester. Visit the training page for details and to register.

Help Desk Office Experiencing Delays

Due to the large volume of requests we are currently receiving in our Help Desk office, expect a longer than usual delay in hearing back from the SSCC staff person assigned your problem. This is especially true for PC support requests which may take several days. We are usually able to tend to other requests within one business day. If you wish to inquire about the status of your request, contact Nancy McDermott, Director of SSCC.

Resources for Learning Statistical Software

Whether you want to add a new statistical package to your own toolbox, have RAs who need to become proficient with a statistical package to be useful, or are teaching a class that requires students to use a statistics package, SSCC resources can help.

The SSCC offers free training on Stata, SAS, SPSS and R. These classes are designed for researchers and taught by the SSCC's Statistical Computing Specialists, who have years of experience helping researchers use these packages. Visit the training page for details and to register.

If you're teaching a statistics class using our computer labs, you can arrange for one of SSCC's Statistical Computing Specialists to give your students a brief introduction to the package you'll be using. Talk to Caitlin Tefft about scheduling (ctefft@ssc.wisc.edu).

The SSCC Knowledge Base also has a large section on Statistical Software. Stata for Researchers covers the same material as our Stata training classes and is designed to allow researchers to learn Stata on their own. Meanwhile Stata for Students (parts one and two) and SPSS for Students (parts one and two) are designed for students taking statistics courses. Making sure your students are aware of these resources could save a great deal of time for them, your TA, and yourself.