> The sociologists, economists and
> business administration faculty won't let go of SPSS n the classroom

It probably won't persuade them, but I think we'd all agree that no
instructor uses SPSS in the classrooom to maximize student learning. Like
canned PowerPoint slides, it's used to make teaching easier on the
instructor. Perhaps there's a gentler way of making that point.

One thing you could point out, however, is that SPSS is wholly incompatible
with the standard screen reading software (such as JAWS) used by blind or
visually impaired people.  SPSS simply doesn't work with it.

But R is widely regarded as the best.  Here's an article on the subject:
http://journal.r-project.org/accepted/2012-14/Godfrey.pdf

If your college cares about accessibility, perhaps that's a start.

Best,
Whitt




On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 11:03 AM, Albyn Jones <jones@reed.edu> wrote:

> My experience has been that young faculty come in knowing about, and
> often using R.  Graduate programs in many disciplines (Poli Sci,
> Linguistics,
> Biology,...) are exposing their students to R.  Older faculty are loathe
> to drop the software that they know well, and around which have developed
> course materials.  I expect that retirements will lead to change :-)
>
> albyn
>
>
> On 2013-01-18 7:44, Paula Grafton Young wrote:
>
>> Re: the post from bob@statland.org: As one of those people who uses R in
>> introductory statistics courses, I hope that this list does not go away. I
>> agree that most of the posts I see are off-topic but the ones that are
>> on-topic have been helpful to me in the classroom. Perhaps a name change
>> would be in order to avoid the confusion relayed by the previous post
>> on reading
>> large data sets--maybe R-sig-ClassroomTeaching or something like that to
>> make it clearer.
>>
>> I do actually have a question that I hope is relevant. I chose to adopt R
>> for all the reasons most people adopt it--open source, accurate,
>> extensible, platform independent. I thought that I would be able to
>> convince
>> my colleagues in other departments to at least consider using R (with
>> something like RKWard or another GUI). I have failed miserably in
>> doing so. I've
>> offered workshops, invited colleagues to attend the R labs for my classes,
>> and have had minimal response (one political scientist, one ecologist).
>> Even having students from my classes do demonstrations of phenomenal
>> graphical
>> representations of data sets didn't convince colleagues to even download R
>> (except for again, the political scientist; the ecologist already had it).
>>
>> I teach at a very small college with a very small IT budget and no
>> departmental budgets for software. The sociologists, economists and
>> business administration faculty won't let go of SPSS n the classroom;
>> the biology
>> faculty use Excel and SPSS, with the exception of the ecologist mentioned
>> previously; the psychology faculty will only use calculators and tables.
>>
>> So, what I would like to hear from some of you at other institutions is
>> what
>> can I do to convince/encourage my colleagues in other departments to adopt
>> R and save our institution a significant amount of money in licensing?
>>
>> Thank you in advance for your insights and advice.
>>
>> ---
>> Dr. Paula Grafton Young
>> Associate Professor of Mathematics
>> Chair, Curriculum Committee, 2011 - 2013
>> Chair, Strategic Planning Steering Committee, 2012 - 2013
>> paula.young@salem.edu
>> 336.721.2747 (O)
>> 336.721.2653 (F)
>>
>>  <http://www.facebook.com/**SalemCollege<http://www.facebook.com/SalemCollege>
>> ><http://www.**twitter.com/SalemCollege<http://www.twitter.com/SalemCollege>
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 10:12 AM, Bob <bob@statland.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I am one of the people who lobbied for the creation of this list long
>>> ago.  I am not sure R is a great choice for a first course in
>>> statistics, but I thought that if someone chose to use it, then they
>>> and their students might need all the help they could get to make it
>>> easier for the class.  But right from the beginning, the bulk of the
>>> posts to the list were like this latest one quoted below -- questions
>>> about how to do something with R that has no obvious connection to
>>> pedagogy or to using R in a first course.  This means that those of us
>>> interested in the actual topic of this list get lots of off-topic
>>> messages, while those who post the messages reach only a small
>>> audience that may not be interested in their question.  Some off topic
>>> posts are answered, some ingnored, and some posters get redirected
>>> (even scolded) toward a more appropriate list.  I see only losers in
>>> this process.
>>>
>>> So my question is whether this list really serves any useful purpose,
>>> or does it just siphon off queries that should have gone elsewhere?
>>> Those who post those queries would be likely to get an answer, and get
>>> it sooner, if they posted to an appropriate list in the first place.
>>> My own answer is that this list is not useful at the present time.
>>> Possibly in the future more people will be interested in R for an
>>> introductory course and then they might be glad if this list were
>>> still alive, but so far...
>>>
>>> So I am wondering what others on the list think.
>>>
>>> Here's the official description of this list.
>>>
>>> Special Interest Group (SIG) on teaching statistics with R. The
>>> primary purpose of the group is to provide a forum where instructors
>>> using R in their statistics courses can share ideas, teaching
>>> materials, and experiences. One particular focus of the SIG is to
>>> provide helpful support to instructors new to R who are teaching
>>> introductory statistics courses populated with students with little
>>> experience in statistics, statistical software, and command line
>>> interfaces.
>>>
>>> Here is where most posts to this list really should have gone.
>>>
>>> R-help
>>>
>>>     The ?main? R mailing list, for discussion about problems and
>>>     solutions using R, announcements (not covered by ?R-announce? or
>>>     ?R-packages?, see above), about the availability of new
>>>     functionality for R and documentation of R, comparison and
>>>     compatibility with S-plus, and for the posting of nice examples
>>>     and benchmarks.
>>>
>>> Forwarded message:
>>> >
>>> > Hi Everyone,
>>> >
>>> > I am a little new to R and the first problem I am facing is the dilemma
>>> > whether R is suitable for files of size 2 GB's and slightly more then 2
>>> > Million rows. When I try importing the data using read.table, it seems
>>> to
>>> > take forever and I have to cancel the command. Are there any special
>>> > techniques or methods which i can use or some tricks of the game that I
>>> > should keep in mind in order to be able to do data analysis on such
>>> large
>>> > files using R?
>>>
>>>
>>> ------->  First-time AP Stats. teacher?  Help is on the way! See
>>>
>>> http://courses.ncssm.edu/math/**Stat_Inst/Stats2007/Bob%**
>>> 20Hayden/Relief.html<http://courses.ncssm.edu/math/Stat_Inst/Stats2007/Bob%20Hayden/Relief.html>
>>>       _
>>>      | |          Robert W. Hayden
>>>      | |          142 Main Street
>>>     /  |          Apartment 104
>>>    |   |          Jaffrey, New Hampshire 03452  USA
>>>    |   |          email: bob@ the site below
>>>   /    |          website: http://statland.org
>>>  | x   /          phone: (603) 532-7224 (home)
>>>  ''''''
>>>
>>> ______________________________**_________________
>>> R-sig-teaching@r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/**listinfo/r-sig-teaching<https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-teaching>
>>>
>>>
>>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________**_________________
>> R-sig-teaching@r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/**listinfo/r-sig-teaching<https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-teaching>
>>
>
> ______________________________**_________________
> R-sig-teaching@r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/**listinfo/r-sig-teaching<https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-teaching>
>



-- 
**************************************************
Whitt Kilburn
Assistant Professor
Political Science Department
1121 AuSable Hall
Grand Valley State University
http://faculty.gvsu.edu/kilburnw

Fall office hours:
Mon and Wed: 3:30-4:30pm
Tues and Thurs: 1-2pm
and by appointment.
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