RSS Matters

By Dr.Karl Ho, Research and Statistical Support Services Manager

Summer Update

Summer has arrived. Isn't it great to have a long summer so we can work hard indoors? Yes, we have been working hard to keep ourselves and you busy. At the Research and Statistical Support office, we are busy introducing new support services and upgrading the current services. So, mind the debris and constructions ahead:

1. New Statistical Applications on UNIX

Thanks to our new Research UNIX Specialist, Duane Gustavus, we have significantly revitalized our UNIX research server, sol, for faculty and researchers. New applications have been installed and old ones upgraded. Among them was the latest version of S-Plus on UNIX. As you may be aware, this software was first originated in the UNIX environment. So, S-Plus 5.1 for UNIX is ahead of its desktop counterpart (S-Plus 4.5 for Windows). In the coming issues of Benchmarks Online, we will give more details about this state-of-the-art statistical package on UNIX. Our current flagships, SAS and SPSS, are all upgraded to the latest versions, v7 and v6.12 respectively on UNIX. We are in the process of evaluating the performance of these two packages. That being said, current versions are still operational. 

To run SPSS or SAS on UNIX, consult the following table:

For more details on using statistical applications on UNIX, check with the RSS consultants via the numbers and addresses listed below.

2. New Services, New Products

This summer we have embarked on a new project with our Data Entry department to renovate services on one of the major parts of the research process: data collection and entry. We are looking for new technology to help data entry service customers, in particular, faculty members and researchers, with their survey instruments and to expedite data entry turn-around time. This technology features the use of a high speed scanner, sophisticated form-designing software and optical character recognition applications. For RSS customers, this will help in the very first stage of the research process in designing scannable forms or questionnaires. We have prioritized the selection criteria as follows:

• This new system should be geared toward accommodating different research designs from the researcher's standpoint and cover the widest variety of form designs. Hence, the system should not be limited by the mere use of traditional bubblesheet format but also exploit optical character recognition (OCR) technology for identifying handwritten data.
   
• It will also provide versatility in data entry, providing alternative entry methods such as Web forms, screen entry and hard-copy form entry.
  
• Enhanced accuracy and expeditious turn-around time

Currently, we are in the process of searching for state-of-the-art software and hardware. We hope that by fall 1999 we will have the new system fully tested and implemented for faculty research use. The RSS office aims to take advantage of the new system and expand our research design service. Should you have new survey projects that needs help in questionnaire design, feel free to drop by our office and get some samples.

Other new products

In addition to the current statistical applications, we plan to expand our support coverage to Mathematica and Matlab on UNIX in the near future. We anticipate that such an expansion will help provide more support to physical science researchers. The most currently installed versions of the RSS supported software are:

Well, hope your summer will not be as busy as ours.  Have a good one, anyhow.

Karl