click here
to return to stats page
click here
to return to reports page
click here to
return to main page
A short version of this article first appeared in the International Statistical Association newsletter, Vol 26, Number 1 (76), 2002, and is at http://isi.cbs.nl/NLet/NLet021-04.htm and http://isi.cbs.nl/FreeTools.htm
There is a great deal of information about statistics available
for free on the WEB. Information includes data or data sets,
general statistical textbooks, email lists, software, and many
sites about special topics, such as epidemiology, forecasting,
data presentation, data editing, multiple imputation, and
propensity score analysis. This article is a brief review of
some useful sites covering these topics.Just one note. There are a
number of lectures at pitt.edu. Linking to those sites from here
doesn't seem to work, but if you copy and paste the urls, they
will work.
To start with, World Statistics Day http://unstats.un.org/unsd/wsd/Default.aspx
was
recently
celebrated,
on
October 10, 2010. According to the UN, the goal of this day was to
"pay tribute to statisticians’ outstanding work in producing and
disseminating the necessary data to respond to the every day new
challenges and to measure progress in people’s lives." (World
Statistics press release, http://unstats.un.org/unsd/wsd/docs/WSD_18Oct2010.pdf
.) This was billed as the first World Statistics Day, so
perhaps there will be more.
When looking for statistical information, there are several sites that are general links. Two general sites are Betty Jung's statsites http://www.bettycjung.net/Statsites.htm and statsci http://www.statsci.org/index.html One other is the World Wide Web Virtual Library: Statistics http://www.stat.ufl.edu/vlib/statistics.html Most of this page is about educational institutions, institutes, associations and the like, with one section on statistical resources.
The best place to start for learning about statistics is HyperStatistics Online, at http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/. This is a a nice statistics book, and it is a comprehensive list of other on line statistics books. Most of these are basic to intermediate. One book, the Statsoft text, http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/ has the basics as well as fairly advanced topics. Another, Statistics at square one http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/readers/statistics-at-square-one/statistics-at-square-one is a fairly introductory book, but from 1997. Another approach is a site is Robert Niles' site Statistics Every Writer Should Know http://www.robertniles.com/stats/ with plain English explanations for many basic statistical concepts.
People can also take free on line training classes on statistics,
for example, from the North Carolina Center for Public Health
Preparedness Training Web Site, http://cphp.sph.unc.edu/training/index.php, or
University of Minnesota's Midwest Center for Life-Long Learning in
Public Health http://www.sph.umn.edu/ce/mclph/
These classes offers a certificate at the end of the
training. StatTrek http://stattrek.com/ also
has a couple of on line tutorials. Another project, from
Claremont Graduate University is the Web Interface for Statistical
Education http://wise.cgu.edu/
also
with
some
on
line
tutorials
and
links
to
resources.
An open course from Carnegie Mellon http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/forstudents/freecourses.
is
basically
presenting
material
used
in
the course taught at the Univerity.
Since statistics is difficult to learn and it is not always clear
to the general public how statistics may be useful, there is one
project aimed at educating the public: the International Statistical Literacy
Project http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/islp/home
The mission of this project "is to support, create and
participate in statistical literacy activities and promotion
around the world." A similar project is Statistical Literacy
http://www.statlit.org/
which
basically
is
a
central
resources
for
events,
and
links
to presentations and other information. A kind of related project
is stats.org
http://www.stats.org/
from
George Mason University. This project describes basic statistical
terms but the main focus seems to be discussing news stories and
how to understand the statistics in those news stories.
Two government websites also try to help the public understand
statistics. The Australian
Bureau of Statistics http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/a3121120.nsf/home/Understanding%20statistics
has
an
on
line
class and a page defining statistical terms. US's National Atlas has a page on
Understanding Descriptive Statistics http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/mapping/a_statistics.html
There are a number of statistical
associations. An international association is the
International Statistical Institute http://isi-web.org/ .
Some other associations are the American Statistical
Assocation http://www.amstat.org/
the
International
Chinese
Statistical
Association http://www.icsa.org/
and
the
International
Indian Statistical Association http://www.intindstat.org/
. Statsci
has a list of associations http://www.statsci.org/soc.html
as
does
the
International Statistical Institute http://isi-web.org/statsoc/nsslist
.
There are a number of email lists. Allstat, at
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=allstat
is a general list, although a great deal of the postings
appear to be postings about jobs or training
courses. Another list stat-l, at http://lists.mcgill.ca/archives/stat-l.html
focuses more on statistical questions. Another useful list, not on
Allstat, is Epidemio, at http://www.listes.umontreal.ca/wws/info/epidemio-l
This
list
is
about
epidemiology.
Another
form
of
discussion
group
is
the
forum.
TalkStats http://www.talkstats.com/
is
one
forum,
with
discussions
about
basic
to
advanced, homework to theory. A smaller forum is from
Statistics.com http://www2.statistics.com/resources/discussionboards/
with only two general categories, statistical methods and
homework.
There are a number of comprehensive places to look for
data. One starting point for social, political and economic
data is the Global Social Change Research Project http://gsociology.icaap.org/,
which
has
both
links
to
a
very
large
number
of
other
data
link
sites, and a page of data sets compiled or created from other data
sets. Many of the data sets listed on this project site are public
domain. All of the data are free to use. This UN site http://data.un.org/
has data on nearly every topic, from the UN and it's various
associates. The Worldbank
also has a data page http://data.worldbank.org/
Most
of
the
data
on
the Worldbank site and all of the data on the UN site may be used
freely. This UN site http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/inter-natlinks/sd_natstat.asp
and this BLS site http://www.bls.gov/bls/other.htm
link to national statistical centers of most countries of the
world.
There are a number of statistical journals on the web with free
content. Many of these are listed at the Directory of Open Access Journals
http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=subject&cpid=59
page
on
statistics.
Some
of
the
journals listed here include the Latin
American
Journal of Probability and Mathematical Statistics
http://alea.impa.br/english/index_v7.htm
, the Electronic Journal
of Applied Statistical Analysis http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/ejasa/index
, and the Journal of
Official Statistics http://www.jos.nu/
There are resources about dozens of specific topics on the web. Some of these topics include epidemiology, graphical analysis and presentation, missing data, forecasting, gathering data and meta-analysis.
Epidemiology: The two best places to start for
epidemiology are EpiMonitor, http://www.epimonitor.net/index.htm,
which has a very comprehensive list of links and the WWW Virtual
Library: Epidemiology http://www.epibiostat.ucsf.edu/epidem/epidem.html
another gateway. Another very good place to start is epidemiolog,
at http://www.epidemiolog.net/.
This
site
also
has
a
fairly
comprehensive
listing
of
epidemiology
sites,
as
well
as
an
on-line textbook. First time visitors should start at http://www.epidemiolog.net/evolving/
. Another free on-line textbook is Epidemiology for the
Uninitiated, at http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/readers/epidemiology-for-the-uninitiated/epidemiology-for-the-uninitiated-fourth-edition
(from 1997)
A very good place to find world
epidemiological data, reports, issues and information is from
WHO http://www.who.int/topics/epidemiology/en/
which
includes
for
example
the
10
leading
causes
of
death,
and
the
Weekly
Epidemiological
Record.
click here to return to top
Presenting Results: After analyzing data, it is very
helpful to know how to best present the results. Very good
sites are: Informative Presentation of Tables, Graphs
and Statistics, at http://www.reading.ac.uk/ssc/publications/guides/toptgs.html
,Washington Statistical Society Methodology
Seminars, Data Presentation: A Guide To Good Graphics
http://www.scs.gmu.edu/~wss/methods/zawitzg.html
and Presenting Data
http://lilt.ilstu.edu/gmklass/pos138/datadisplay/
. Also BTS’s Guide to Good Statistical Practice
has a useful section on presenting results, at http://www.bts.gov/publications/guide_to_good_statistical_practice_in_the_transportation_field/index.html
. For some interesting good and bad examples,
see the Gallery of Data Visualization, at http://www.datavis.ca/gallery/index.php
More recently, there are sites showing moving charts, like
Gapminder http://www.gapminder.org/
or mapping international data like Show http://show.mappingworlds.com/world/
Missing Data: Two sites that are overviews of
missing data page are the University of Texas Statistical Services
FAQ page, #25, at
http://www.utexas.edu/its-archive/rc/answers/general/gen25.html
and Professor von Hippel's faq page http://www.sociology.ohio-state.edu/people/ptv/
where
he
talks
about
whether
data
are
missing
at
random
or
not, and how to deal with the missing data. Also see the first
couple of paragraphs of Dr. Howell's page http://www.uvm.edu/~dhowell/StatPages/More_Stuff/Missing_Data/Missing.html
One
way
to
deal
with
missing
data
is
multiple
imputation,
described
at
the
Multiple Imputation FAQ page, at http://sites.stat.psu.edu/~jls/mifaq.html
Multiple imputation fills in missing data by using other
variables to predict the missing values. One software
program for estimating missing data is AMELIA,
at http://gking.harvard.edu/software/
Forecasting: Two faculty members have lectures about
forecasting on the web. These are Bob Nau's class notes
on forecasting at http://web.duke.edu/~rnau/411out00.html,
and Hossein Arsham's Time Series Analysis and Forecasting
Techniques, at http://home.ubalt.edu/ntsbarsh/Business-stat/stat-data/Forecast.htm
Also, another forecasting site is the Federal
Forecasters Consortium, at http://www1.va.gov/vhareorg/ffc.htm
Conference proceedings can be downloaded from this site.
Methods of gathering data: There are a number of sites on gathering data. Two places to start are Resources for Methods in Evaluation and Social Research, at http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods/ and The World Wide Evaluation Information Gateway http://www.policy-evaluation.org/ These site are link to other sites about methods, quantitative and qualitative. Some sites are about specific tools in data gathering. Tom O'Connor's lecture notes, at http://www.drtomoconnor.com/3760/default.htm covers various issues such as measurement, validity and reliability, and scales in indexes.
Meta-analysis: There are several introductions to
meta-analysis. One is a supercourse
http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec1171/index.htm
. One link is to an on line book Meta - Analysis:
Methods of Accumulating Results Across Research Domains, by
Larry C. Lyons, at http://www.lyonsmorris.com/MetaA/index.htm
(this link sometimes doesn't work). One of the
Epi Supercourses is about meta-analysis, How to conduct a
Meta-Analysis
http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec1171/index.htm
Other topics include propensity score analysis http://www.epa.gov/caddis/da_advanced_5.html
.
Propensity
score
analysis
is
a
method
of
dealing
with
self
selection
bias.
Robert
Pruzek has a paper describing propensity score analysis http://rmpruzek.com/
Another interesting special topic sit is the Centre for
Multilevel Modelling at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmm/
One site about data mining is kdnuggets at http://www.kdnuggets.com/
(a newsletter and general links to links site).
I don't necessarily endorse any of the sites listed here, and do not assume responsibility for content of the web sites listed in this article. This article is solely presented for educational purposes.
click here to return to stats pagelast updated 9/28/2011
last verified 11/23/2011
click here
to see who we are or to contact us