A SAMPLER OF WWW RESOURCES FOR TEACHING STATISTICS

Online companion for an article in

RESOURCES FOR UNDERGRADUATE INSTRUCTORS

OUTLINE

2. On-line Course Materials
3. On-line Texts
4. JAVA Applets
5. Electronic Journals
6. Discussion Lists and Newsgroups
7. Data, Data, and More Data
8. Miscellaneous Sites
9. Conclusion

Section 1 - INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this paper is to direct browsers/readers to websites that typify the various sorts of resources which are currently available via the World Wide Web to help support statistics instruction. Due to the rapidly evolving nature of the Web, some links may no longer be available, some may have radically modified content, and new resources are appearing at a steady rate. We will update these links periodically to try to provide a current snapshot of the status of WWW resources for teaching statistics. Your assistance in pointing out dead links and suggesting additional resources to be included is greatly appreciated. Comments can be sent to rlock@stlawu.edu.

Section 2- On-line Course Materials

More and more instructors are providing course materials to their students through websites. In addition to providing convenient access for students, these pages can be perused by instructors at other institutions looking for hints and ideas to improving their own courses. Note: Course below may become unavailable as semester offerings change and sites restrict access to enrolled students only.

Beth Chance's Math 37 - Probability and Statistics at the University of the Pacific.
Hal Stern's Stat 101 at Iowa StateUniversity.
Multiple sections of Stat 100 at Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.
Wlodzimierz Bryc's Elementary Probability and Statistics at the Univ. of Cincinnati.
David Schultz and Kenneth Valente's Math 102 a Chance-type course at Colgate University.
Multidisciplinary resources for X10 Intro Statistics at Dartmouth College.
Al Coon's AP Statistics at the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School.
Therese Stukel's Intro to Linear Models at Dartmouth College
Di Cook's Stat 501 - Multivariate Statistical Methods at Iowa State University.
J.J. McDowell's Psychology 230 - Elementary Statistics at Emory University.
Michael Friendly's Psych 3030 - Intermediate Statistics at York University.
Gary Cziko's EdPsych 390 - Elements of Educational Statistics Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.
Gene Glass' Introduction to Quantitative Methods at Arizona State University.

Lots of Courses

Links to Web Pages for Statistics Courses at Illinois-Urbana-Champaign (check previous courses).

Section 3- On-line Texts

Several individuals and groups have undertaken ambitious projects to develop statistics textbooks that can be accessed via the Web. Some examples...

SurfStat being developed at the University of Newcastle, Australia.
Hyperstat Online by David Lane at Rice University.
Statistics: The Study of Stability in Variation edited by Jan de Leeuw at UCLA.
Introductory Statistics: Concepts, Models, and Applications by David W. Stockburger at SW Missouri State University
Multivariate Statisics: Concepts, Models, and Applications by David W. Stockburger at SW Missouri State University

Commercial Ventures

Seeing Statistics by Gary McClelland (Duxbury)
CyberStats being developed by CyberGnostics Inc.

Section 4- JAVA Demonstrations

The emergence of JAVA as a platform-independent web programming language has encouraged individuals to develop interactive demonstration software that can be accessed via any JAVA-capable browser.

Some of our favorite individual JAVA applets (selected from the sites listed below):

Guessing Correlations - a neat "game" to show the relationship between correlations and scatterplots - ten minutes should get the ideas across to almost any student. Part of the CUWU Statistical Program at Illinois-Champaign-Urbana.
Regression - see the effects of adding an outlier (Webster West - S. Carolina).
Histogram - check the effect of bin size on Old Faithful data (Webster West - S. Carolina).
Effect of a "Small" Effect - visualization of the impact of a difference in group means on job candidate selection (Mark Lane - Rice).
Power of a Hypothesis Test - nice graphical look at power for a test of a mean (Todd Ogden - S. Carolina).
Let's Make a Deal version done by Webster West is quick to play and includes an explanation.

The sites below contain collections of JAVA applets or links to applets at various locations which are relevant to statistics instruction.

Globally Accessible Statistical Procedures (GASP) collected at the Univ. of South Carolina.
Interesting JAVA Applets compiled at Duke University.
The CUWU Statistics Program by John Marden at Champaign-Urbana Web University.
Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics developed by David Lane and others at Rice University.
Virtual Laboratories in Probability and Statistics - good site for probability simulations created by Kyle Siegrist at Alabama-Huntsville.
SurfStat JAVA Applet Hotlist - part of the on-line textbook at University of Newcastle.

Statistics Packages available as JAVA applications over the Web:

WebStat - created by Webster West at the University of South Carolina
Statlets - a multi-featured JAVA-based statistics package with fee-based web access and a free downloadable version for small datasets (8 variables x 50 cases). Produced by Statpoint.

EXAMPLE: Here's modest course webpage with links to a few applets for students to explore.

Section 5- Electronic Journals & Newsletters

Journal of Statistics Education (JSE) publishes refereed articles, datasets, reviews, and tips related to all aspects of teaching statistics at the postsecondary level. JSE has been available electronically since its founding in 1993. Now sponsored by the Americain Statistical Association (ASA) and no longer with a subscription fee.
Chance News - biweekly references to statistical issues in current news media.
Newsletter of the Statistical Education Section - of the American Statistical Association.
Math, Stats & OR Newsletter - a particularly good source for reviews of statistical software in teaching.
The Statistics Teacher Network - has its most recent issue on the ASA Center for Statistical Education Website.
Web Guide to Statistical Journals -maintained by Gordon Smythe at University of Queensland, contains links to loads of stat journals (not just stat education).

Section 6 - Discussion Lists and Newsgroups

These e-lists allow instructors to share questions, ideas and announcements related to teaching statistics, practicing statistics, and statistical computing. Although e-mail discussion lists are part of the wider Internet resources, the websites which archive the messages also provide good resources for searching through past discussions.

Archives of Apstat-l This list was set-up to support high school teachers doing an Advanced Placement course in Statistics. Lots of good conversation about teaching an introductory course.
Archives of Edstat-l (and several other discussion lists) are maintained by the JSE Information Service. This was one of the first electronic discussion lists devoted to teaching issues.
Mike Fuller's List of Statistical Lists A number of other e-mail discussion lists are maintained for specific countries (e.g. Australia, Brazil, Italy, New Zealand), statistical topics (e.g. Bayesian methods, experimental design, time series analysis), subject areas (e.g. biometry, geography, econometrics), and software packages (e.g. Minitab, SPSS, SAS).

Section 7- Data, Data, and More Data

Need an example of a regression which is drastically altered by an influential outlier? Want to find some data to illustrate descriptive statistics which will appeal to students interested in environmental issues? Looking for a multivariate dataset to serve as the basis for next week's midterm exam? Have a student who loves horse racing and wants to use data from past runnings of the Kentucky Derby for her project? The Web is the place to find loads of data sources, often in downloadable formats.

Dataset Archives

DASL The Dataset and Story Library - a collection of datasets and related documentation (stories) which may be searched by data subjects or by statistical techniques.
Journal of Statistics Education Data Archive Datasets contributed by statistics teachers. Raw data are in a .dat file with explanations a .doc file. Many of these datasets are tied to longer JSE articles discussing their use in statistics classes.
Statlib Dataset Archive One of the original (and still best) sources for archived data.
CHANCE Project Datasets Data from recent media coverage of current events. Only a few datasets here, but many excellent references to teaching applications of statistics in the news can be found at the main CHANCE page.
Datasets in Excel, NCSS, or tab-delimited ASCII, with suggestions for appropriate statistical topics - part of an excellent set of resources for Exploring Data produced by Rex Boggs.

Pages of Links to Datasites

Dr. B's Wide World of Web Data. An extensive collection of data sources maintained by John Behrens (Dr. B) at Arizona State.
Sports Statistics on the Web Links to websites with loads of sports data, assembled by Jim Box for the ASA's Section on Statistics in Sports. Check here also for links to lots of sports websites.
Fishing for Data Using the Net compiled by Stephen Turner and Leon Bourn at Babson College.
Datasurfing A page I maintain for getting students started on finding data on the Web.
Sports Data Page Links to current and archived data related to various sports.

Government & Official Agencies Data

There's tons of data produced by various govenment departments, although it often takes a bit of digging to find it.

FEDSTATS - Billed as the "One-Stop Shopping" source for governement data with links to more than 70 federal agencies - be sure to check it's "A to Z" list.
U.S. Census Bureau - includes the Statistical Abstract of the United States, a nice map interface to sample data from counties, and long list of data subjects. The state rankings are a popular source for student projects.
The World Factbook - produced by the CIA. Lots of statistics for each country in the world. Similar information could be found in a good almanac, but students seem to like browsing for it on the Web.
Bureau of Labor Statistics - lots of economic data -- an especially good source for time series data.
State Data Centers - a list maintained at the Census Bureau to give links to various official data sources in each state.
International Statistical Agencies - a similar Census Bureau list with links to official statistics branches in most countries.

Data About the Web

Want to measure some feature of Web pages? You'll need a way to randomly sample pages...

Yahoo's Random Link - click this link to go to a random page in Yahoo's extensive inventory.
URouLette - another random link generator

Or to check how a sample of colleges and universities present themselves via the web...

·American Colleges and Universities - a list of links maintained by Mike Conlon at the Univ. of Florida.

Generating simulated data

Expersim Project - online simulation of data from several scenarios with an empahsis on experimental design. Produced by a group at the Univ. of Colarado at Boulder, based on software developed at the Univ. of Michigan.
StatVillage - sample from the population of this online town, with demographics generated from real Canadian census data -brought to you by Carl Schwarz at Simon Fraser University.

Example: What data do STUDENTS choose from the web?

Section 8- Miscellaneous Links

Sites with good general links related to teaching statistics:

Statistical Education Section of the American Statistical Association (ASA).
Journal of Statistics Education Information Service.
LTSN Maths, Statistics & OR Network (incorprating material from the former CTI Statistics).
Chance Database - materials to support a course based on examples from current media.

Need some questions for that next quiz or exam, check:

Links to Sample Test and Quiz Questions - maintained by Al Coons at the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School.

To find a statistical software provider's webpage:

Links to Statistical Software Vendors - maintained by Stata Corportation.

Information on statistics textbooks (including reviews):

List of Undergraduate Textbooks - maintained by Ann Cannon at Cornell College.
Links to Statistics Textbook Publishers - maintained by Robin Lock at St. Lawrence Univ.

Other sites to start browsing

Exploring Data - an excellent collection of links and resources for teaching an introductory level course. Part on-line text, part on-line course materials, and all well-presented by Rex Boggs at Glenmore HS in Rockhampton, Australia.
Statistical Instruction Internet Palette (SIIP) - a project directed by John Behrens at Arizona State.
Statistics on the Web- links to more general statistical resources with a good section related to teaching statistics, put together by Clay Helberg at SPSS, Inc.

Guide to the Web for Statisticians - lots of general statistical links with good sections on teaching and data, maintained by Gordon Smythe at University of Queensland.

Section 9- Conclusion

The development of the World Wide Web has produced unprecedented means for instructors to easily share their ideas on ways to improve the teaching of statistics. The links presented here represent some of the types of resources that are currently avaialble, but are by no means an exhaustive list of the many excellent websites that help support statistics instruction. Although the volume of on-line material may seem daunting, and the process of searching for worthwhile information can be frustrating, the rewards, both for instructors and our students, can be quite substantial. If current trends continue, universal access to the Web should become easier, faster, and more common, on-line applications should become even more sophisticated, and useful resources should continue to appear at a steady rate.