[R-sig-teaching] Teaching R to Environmental Scientists

[Arthur Georges]

Bob,

Minitab has come a long way. I was pleasantly surprised by the table 
you referred to. I would still like to see a table comparing it with 
SAS or R though. I probably would not stand up that well. Also the 
Fisheries people that have funded me use R or SAS, and the public 
service over here is pretty much wedded to SAS. I do not know of any 
graduate employer here that uses Minitab in the workplace -- it is 
pretty important to have graduates with competency in something that 
will have them up and running when they enter the workplace.

So really the choice for me is (a) Stick with SAS and fight out the 
licencing arrangements with a large and immovable bureaucracy, or (b) 
Run with R or (c) a mixture of both.

As for the command line side of things, I like to have the students 
learn the programming first, then move to the menu driven system 
second if they choose to. I am not a big fan of menu driven stuff, as 
it can lead to a bit of a black-box mentality. I suppose that is just 
a matter of choice.

Thanks for your comments,

Arthur



At 09:23 AM 11/08/2007, you wrote:

>Minitab has come a long way since it was just for teaching an
>intro. course.  Check
>
>       http://www.minitab.com/products/Minitab/compare.aspx
>
>But I realize this may not be the exact mix of features you need.
>(There are at least two macro languages for extending it but activity
>seems to have died down on the old one (simple scripting) and the new
>one never seems to have caught on.  But it's there.)
>
>I am not exactly sure what your issues are with a GUI.  There are GUI
>interfaces for R and a free student version of S-Plus (a commercial
>inplementation of the same language as R) that keep a command history
>so you can use the GUI as a way to get students started quickly and
>then gradually move them to the command line.  (Most of my students in
>my last years in the classroom had never SEEN a command line;-)  With
>Minitab I never cared whether they used the command line or the menus
>though I used the command line 90% of the time.  It WAS a big
>advantage that even if the student uses the menus you can set Minitab
>so that corresponding commands appear in the output.  That was a big
>help to me in debugging where students went wrong.
>
>Stata has been growing gradually and quietly.  It's pretty powerful
>and has a command line.
>
> > Bob,
> >
> > I looked at Minitab a ways back, and it sort of stops dead in terms
> > of students developing beyond what I teach when they move into the
> > subjects that follow. I was hoping not to have them swapping and
> > changing software, but maybe that would be a good thing?
> >
> > Thanks for the advice,
> >
> > Arthur
> >
> > At 07:51 AM 11/08/2007, you wrote:
> >
> > >It certainly does not look like you would need SAS or R for the topics
> > >covered, which could easily be done with Minitab, which has a command
> > >line available -- one far simpler than R's.  And it's a lot cheaper
> > >than SAS!
> > >
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > Great to discover this mailing list. I have been running a course in
> > > > environmental statistics using SAS for some years now, but have
> > > > recently moved to delivering the material online or in mixed mode
> > > > delivery. It would not come as a surprise to you as R users that the
> > > > SAS licencing is getting in the way of this, as the students know no
> > > > national boundaries, and distributing SAS across the globe is 
> problematic.
> > > >
> > > > I am therefore exploring switching to R. I do so with some
> > > > trepidation, as I chose SAS in part because the code is intelligible
> > > > to novice programmers (I use the command line approach for
> > > > pedagogical reasons) whereas R syntax is likely to present a greater
> > > > obstacle to learning for budding environmental scientists. Can anyone
> > > > comment on their experiences with this? Are SAS and SPSS more
> > > > suitable for undergraduate levels, and R better introduced at
> > > > graduate level? Should I not go there for the undergrads? Any tricks
> > > > of the trade?
> > > >
> > > > My course is on http://ecology.lamsinternational.com/ and you will
> > > > note that there is an Introductory R module there that I have not yet
> > > > trialed on a class -- plan to in February. If you want to poke around
> > > > in there, the enrolment key is Fisher.
> > > >
> > > > All the best,
> > > >
> > > > Arthur
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > R-sig-teaching at r-project.org mailing list
> > > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-teaching
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >  _______
> > >|   ^  |
> > >|     /                     Robert W. Hayden
> > >|    |                      in the old library
> > >|    |                      212 Main Street
> > >|   /                       P. O. Box 450
> > >|  |                      ^ North Troy, VT 05859
> > >L__L                        (802) 988-2587
> > >                             http://statland.org/
> > >Map of VT                   bob at statland.org
> > >
> > >Communications sent to Plymouth State will not reach me.
> >
> > ==========================================================
> > Arthur  Georges, Professor in Applied Ecology
> > Institute for Applied Ecology and
> > School of Resource, Environmental and Heritage Sciences
> > Building 3, University of Canberra ACT 2601 AUSTRALIA
> > Tel : (02)6201 5786  Fax: (02)62015305  Mobile: 0418 866741
> > Email: georges at aerg.canberra.edu.au
> > WWW: http://aerg.canberra.edu.au/staff/georges/
> > Reprints: http://aerg.canberra.edu.au/cgi-bin/pubs.cgi?target=G1
> > ==========================================================
> > Australian Government Higher Education Registered Provider CRICOS: #00212K
> >
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> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > R-sig-teaching at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-teaching
> >
>
>
>
>  _______
>|   ^  |
>|     /                     Robert W. Hayden
>|    |                      in the old library
>|    |                      212 Main Street
>|   /                       P. O. Box 450
>|  |                      ^ North Troy, VT 05859
>L__L                        (802) 988-2587
>                             http://statland.org/
>Map of VT                   bob at statland.org
>
>Communications sent to Plymouth State will not reach me.