SCS Short Courses, Fall 1995

[Registration Fees] [Registration Form]

Introduction to SAS for Windows

Instructor:
Peggy Ng
Dates:
Windows Pre-session: October 3 Basics: October 10, 17 Intermediate Topics: October 24, November 7
Time:
Tuesdays, 9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Location:
Room T107 Steacie Science Library
Enrolment Limit:
30
The Statistical Analysis System (SAS) is a widely used general purpose data analysis program noted for its flexibility and its variety of statistical procedures. SAS runs on many computing platforms, from mainframes to personal computers. This course provides a basic introduction to SAS under the Windows environment.

The course consists of three parts, which may be taken individually or as a whole:

I Windows Pre-session: The pre-session is intended to make the SAS sessions accessible to those without previous experience with Windows on personal computers. Only the bare essentials of Windows will be covered; those familiar with Windows need not attend.

II Basic Introduction: Sessions One and Two provide an overview of SAS and its underlying logic; an explanation of the use of the Display Manager System to run a SAS job; an introduction to the SAS Data step for reading, transforming, and storing data; and a demonstration of how statistical analyses may be performed in SAS Proc (procedure) steps.

III Intermediate Topics: Sessions Three and Four will concentrate on SAS programming techniques to modify data and enhance SAS output. As well, more statistical procedures will be introduced.


Introduction to SPSS for Windows

Instructor:
Mirka Ondrack
Dates:
Windows Pre-session: October 4 Basics: October 11, 18 Intermediate Topics: October 25, November 1, 8, 15
Time:
WEDNESDAYS Noon - 4:00 p.m.
Location:
Room T107 Steacie Science Library
Enrolment Limit:
30
This course presents the basics of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) including an introduction to computing concepts and the essentials of SPSS. Other sessions will demonstrate various ways of formatting data and will cover data modifications, transformations, and the use of SPSS system files. The final session will help experienced SPSS users on mainframe systems convert SPSS files to the Windows environment.

Data Analysis and Statistical Graphics Using 'S'

Instructor:
Professor Yuehua Wu
Dates:
October 5, 12, 19, 26
Time:
THURSDAYS 4:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Location:
Room S701 Ross Building
Enrolment Limit:
15
The S programming language for statistics and graphics was developed by the Statistics Group at AT&T Bell Labs. Many feel that S is the language of choice for the development of new statistical tools and for interactive analysis of data. A commercial version, S+, is available on Unix workstations and on PCs under Windows. At York, S+ has been installed on the "nexus" Unix system and other UNIX machines within Mathematics and Statistics.

The purpose of this course is to show how to use S in a Unix environment. The course will have both lecture and hands-on components. Participants will receive access to an account for running S+. The four sessions of the course will cover approximately the following material:

I The Unix Environment: Logging in, mail, editing with vi, directory structure, basic file manipulation and introduction to the X-Window environment.

II Basic Use of S: Data input, manipulating data, printing, history mechanism, S arrays and data frames, random number generation, arithmetic operators; functions for manipulating data structures: apply and category; help facilities.

III Programming and Graphics in S: Writing S functions, one- and two-dimensional graphs, interactive graphs.

IV Introduction to the Use of Statistical Functions in S: Regression and regression diagnostics based on the linear-model function, lm().

An Introduction to S and S-Plus by Phil Spector (Duxbury Press, 1994, 286 pages, ISBN 0-534-19866-X, $35.95) is a recommended text and it is available from the York University Bookstore.


Categorical Data Analysis with Graphics

Instructor:
Professor Michael Friendly
Dates:
November 8, 15 WEDNESDAYS 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. Room 220 Stong
Enrolment Limit:
30
Statistical methods for categorical data, such as log-linear models and logistic regression, represent discrete analogs of the analysis of variance and regression methods for continuous response variables.

While graphical display techniques are common adjuncts to analysis of variance and regression, methods for plotting contingency table data are not as widely used. Moreover, while statistical methods can be used to determine which variables are related, the numerical summaries and parameter estimates do not provide easy ways to show how those variables are related.

This workshop provides a brief introduction to graphical methods which are useful for understanding the pattern of association among categorical variables. These methods can be helpful for both data exploration and for communicating results to others. Some of the methods described include:

These graphical techniques are illustrated with real data in the form of two-way and multi-way frequency tables.

This course is an updated version of Graphical Methods for Categorical Data, with somewhat greater introductory material on logistic regression and loglinear models. Categorical Data Analysis Using the SAS(R) System by Stokes, Davis, and Koch (SAS Institute, 1995, ISBN 1-55544-219-6) is a useful adjunct to the course and will be available in the York bookstore.


About the Instructors

Click the title above for more information.