November 27th, 2012
SUBJECT: Free Statistical Analyses -- UBC Department of Statistics
Dear UBC Graduate Students, Research Staff and Faculty:
We are writing to let you know of an opportunity available in Term 2 of 20122013. As part of our ongoing efforts to bring current research into the
classroom, free statistical analyses will be available this term, from the
students enrolled in STAT 450, Case Studies in Statistics. The students will
be carrying out this academic activity under the co-supervision of Craig
Burkett and Gabriela Cohen Freue. The data will be treated with
confidentiality within the course and will be destroyed once the course ends.
Please consider whether the type of feedback described might be helpful to
you. If so, please submit your projects, carefully following the guidelines
provided in the announcement below.
Sincerely,
Gabriela Cohen Freue
Craig Burkett
Department of Statistics
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STAT 450, Case Studies in Statistics
TERM 2 of 2012-2013
Research projects from all UBC-affiliated units and all levels of researchers
(but particularly undergraduate and graduate students) are welcome. Research
projects requiring primarily advice on appropriate methods of statistical
analysis are ideally suited for STAT 450. We may also consider some projects
that require a statistician to design the experiment. To allow us to expose
the students to a variety of projects in one term, the total time spent on
each project has to be limited, so well-focused projects with one or two
specific questions to be addressed are most suitable. The students will
identify appropriate approaches to the analysis, carry these out, and provide
a report interpreting their results.
If you are uncertain about how best to carry out the statistical analyses for
some question arising in your research project and are willing to have others
explore your data relevant to that question, you likely have a suitable
project for STAT 450. To take advantage of this unique opportunity to
receive free statistical feedback, please submit your project description to
us by e-mail (stat450@ugrad.stat.ubc.ca).
A submission of at most one page (as a separate WORD file) is preferred.
Your submission should consist of a concise description of your research
problem in non-specialist language, clearly indicating the specific questions
for which statistical analyses are desired. Supplementary material, if
essential, can also be provided. Once your project is approved for STAT 450,
you will need to provide the data set as an .xls, .txt, or .csv, with all the
variables, including units and coding where relevant, clearly identified. It
will often be most efficient to provide this information as a separate data
dictionary. The data will be treated with confidentiality within the course
and will be destroyed once the course ends.
Once your project is approved, your description will be added to the list
from which students will select projects. The clearer your description, the
more likely students are to select your project, so it is to your advantage
to submit as clear a description as possible.
If you are willing to come to the STAT 450 class to describe your research
project in more detail and to answer questions the students may have, that
would be wonderful. This will be a good opportunity for the student(s)
working on your project to ask questions in the course of their work on your
project. In addition, the student(s) working on your project will need to
meet with you to ask questions and/or provide preliminary results. This will
give the students the opportunity to practice and enhance their communication
skills and, to your advantage, will result in a better final product.
Undergraduate and graduate students seeking feedback via STAT 450 need the
permission of their research supervisor. An e-mail from the research
supervisor at the time of project submission suffices.
If you know others who might be interested in this opportunity, please pass
on this information. Thanks in advance for submitting interesting and
challenging projects for the students enrolled in STAT 450 this term.
Gabriela Cohen Freue
Craig Burkett
Department of Statistics
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