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The research and statistical support group
at the University of North Texas (RSS) is staffed by two full-time staff
employees. Dr. Richard Herrington has degrees in psychology, mathematics
and education, and is proficient in R, S-Plus, SPSS, SAS, LISREL,
Zope Web Server, and various other research oriented
tools in Unix/Linux. Dr. Jon Starkweather has a Ph.D. in Experimental
Psychology and has experience with R, SPSS, SAS,
LaTeX, and various other statistical software.
Research Support: We very much
enjoy collaborating on research projects with the faculty and students who come
to our offices. We can suggest the various analyses which can be performed on
your data, along with the pros and cons of each. One can just use us to bounce
ideas off of in the earliest stages to help assist with diagnostic checks
at the end.
Knowledge Support: Statistics is a
constantly evolving enterprise that the applied researcher typically does not
have time to keep up with. That's where we come in. We have many books,
articles, software at our disposal to help you learn new techniques to make your
analyses better!
Software Support: We support
various software packages related to research endeavors such as SPSS, S-Plus,
Stata, R, LaTex,
Zope, QSurvey, SAS,
LISREL, and Eviews.
Programming: We can suggest
strategies for specific problems, perhaps show you example programs if you
desire, and hopefully help your coding become more efficient.
Instructional Support: We can offer
strategies for integrating quantitative methods and statistical computing into
your class.
More on our policies can be found
here.
Software: We cannot give you help
with software we do not support (which includes some specific modules for SAS,
SPSS etc.), nor can we fix your supported software issue during non-office
hours. Also some issues may need to be resolved by network managers for the
various colleges on campus.
Programming: We cannot write the
programs for you.
Data analysis: While we can tell
you what we think you should do or what we would do in such a situation, we
cannot make the final decisions about how you should analyze your data or
perform the analysis for you. That in the end is left to the primary
investigator and/or research collaborators. Also, we are not in the business of
helping you do poor research. We expect our clients to have a vested interest
in what they are researching and desire to get the most out of their data.
Meeting your deadline: You are one
of many people requiring our assistance along with other general duties we have
at RSS. While we can do what is possible within our means, research problems
often take weeks or even months to solve so come for help early well before
your deadline.
Homework: We do not provide help
for coursework. And yes, we can tell.
Teach basic statistics:
Unfortunately, we simply do not have the time and resources to help you learn
basic statistics (nor should you be conducting scientific research without such
knowledge). We expect at minimum for you to have taken an introductory course
so that we can speak the same language.
Students can obtain copies of some
supported software at local and web retail locations or from the software
manufacturers themselves. Some versions, of varying degrees of functionality
(e.g., student versions) may be available for different prices depending on the
software. Stata must be purchased directly through the Stata website. Full
details of software we support can be found
here.
Full-time and/or benefits eligible staff
and faculty may obtain copies of SPSS and/or SAS from their respective
department's network administrator. Generally, UNT's LICENSES for SPSS and SAS
DO NOT ALLOW this option for undergraduate students or graduate students
regardless of whether they are TFs, TAs, RAs, or RFs. However, there are an
extremely limited number of complex acceptations to these license rules which
allow some graduate students to obtain these software packages from RSS.
For specific questions concerning supported software licensing, please contact
Patrick McLeod.
SPSS users might want to take a look at
PSPP which is extremely
similar to SPSS; but, PSPP is a free download.
Our services are free to the UNT community.
If the dates are not posted they have not
been decided upon yet; please do not contact us asking when they will be. As
soon as the dates are determined they are immediately posted to the
web.
Although the schedules of the members of
RSS are somewhat variable depending on individual work load, we maintain
coverage from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.
Appointments are made by filling out a
request form
here.
Depending on your needs you may end up having to work with someone specifically,
or anyone of us might be able to offer assistance. |
