Teachingwithdata.org - "Pathway to Quantitative Literacy in Social Sciences"

http://teachingwithdata.org/

I found this website via the Resources for Instructors section of the ICPSR website. It has many useful resources and features that a research instructor would find very practical in lesson planning! Some of the features include:

• Data In The News: useful for talking about ethical use of data, whether its represented correctly, etc.
• Charts & Tables: visual aids to enhance learning (e.g., use of census data).
• Lectures and Lessons: on a variety of topics.
• Activities & Assignments: for use in class or out of class.
• And lots more!

Even if you are not teaching a research methods course, this is a great way to integrate research into other class content, in order to help students better understand the link between research and practice.

Screen shot of their homepage.

So don't delay, check it out today!

www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/ - UCLA Statistical Computing

http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/

I know that many of my student readers are beginning to utilize statistical software packages more as they enter into higher levels of their research process. One website that has been priceless for me as I learned how to use Stata was UCLA's Statistical Computing website. They offer so much detailed and useful information on a range of software packages, it would be hard to capture all of what they offer in this blog post. Here's an example of what they offer for SPSS:

When I was learning Stata, I found it extremely helpful to go to their Stata page and search for the command I was trying to learn. Here's an example. If you search for the Stata command "egen", here's what you'll find:

The site also offers educational resources for the classroom, including textbook examples. They also have links to prior workshops now available online: 

This resource is not to be overlooked even for the seasoned researcher, as it provides an easy to navigate refresher of common and not-so-common commands and analyses. Put it on your bookmarks list!

ICPSR - summer learning programs

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/sumprog/index.jsp

I attended a webinar hosted by the folks at ICPSR (the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research) on their educational opportunities. The part I found most interesting, and applicable to my readers, was their summer learning series. They have seminars on almost every topic of quantitative data analysis you can imagine. So if you are a doc student who needs to learn (for example) about group-based modeling (or, "latent class growth analysis") you can attend a workshop by Daniel Nagin on that very topic! The workshops are pricey if you are a poor graduate student, but if you can find a way to pay for it, then you should definitely consider attending one of these specialized training opportunities for your dissertation analysis strategy. They also have workshops geared towards undergraduate and graduate students, so be sure to share this with your students. Head on over and check out the summer programs!