RSS Matters: Summer programs in Quantitative Methods 

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

It is time to plan for your summer break again. Have you ever thought of taking a summer program at the University of Michigan or in Europe? Every summer, RSS offers financial support to UNT students to attend the summer program held by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). The consortium offers a series of quantitative methods courses being taught by renowned researchers or scholars in various disciplines. 

The program has two sessions. The first one is offered between June 25 and July 20; the second is between July 23 and August 17. The courses range from four-day workshops to eight-week credit awarding courses. For a list of the course titles, visit the ICPSR Summer program Website.

For Political Science students, there is another opportunity for financial support. The Clogg Scholarship Award is available for ADVANCED graduate students for application. The award is a waiver of the Program Scholar fees to attend the four and/or eight week program. For more details, contact Professor Jim Meernik, one of our ICPSR Official Representatives in the Political Science department.

If you want to learn more about the life in summer Ann Arbor, read the Benchmarks article by Austin Kang, one of the former attendants. The now Dr. Kang gave a vivid account of his learning experience in Michigan. You certainly will find this article informative and interesting.

Just what is ICPSR?

For those who are not sure what ICPSR is, let me briefly go over what the consortium is and how much research resources are available for UNT researchers. The consortium currently holds over 4,500 data titles, which include 44,800 data files and 4,750 documents associated with the data titles. Data from a quarter of the data titles are downloadable for the general public via the consortium's Website (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu). As a member of ICPSR, however, researchers at UNT are eligible to have access to all data sets archived at the consortium. While some of the files are directly downloadable from the sites (including machine-readable codebooks and certain data titles), research can order the data from RSS office's Website (http://www.unt.edu/rss/).   

If you are not interested in a "local" program, there is another summer program that offers methods courses. The Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis and Collection held at University of Essex also offers a wide range of methods courses. And, it is in Europe! For more details, visit the University of Essex Summer School website.

Be reminded, the deadlines of application for the ICPSR travel stipends and the Clifford C. Clogg scholarship are imminent. They are April 30, 2001 and April 23, 2001 respectively. For application details, contact the RSS office or the ICPSR Official Representatives at UNT. They are Dr. Philip Baczewski at the Academic Computing Services (565-3886) and Dr. Jim Meernik of the department of Political Science (565-4233).