Moving On Up: SPSS 15 Bids Adieu, PASW Statistics 17 Waves Hello

By Patrick McLeod, Research and Statistical Support Services Consultant

At the end of this month, we will bid farewell to another version of SPSS while welcoming a new version. Well, perhaps ‘welcoming’ isn’t quite accurate since PASW Statistics 17 is not exactly new to the UNT research community; as SPSS 15 rolls off the support grid, we will be making PASW Statistics 17 our new officially supported version of the SPSS Statistics/PASW Statistics software.

As referenced in the March 6, 2009 DCSMT meeting, SPSS 15 will no longer be available after August 31, 2009 and PASW Statistics 17 will be the currently supported version of the SPSS/PASW software. SPSS, Inc. moved to a 2 version support window two years ago. What this means is that SPSS supports the current version of their Statistics software (as of August 2009, this version is PASW Statistics 17) and one version prior to the current version (SPSS 16).

In order to better support the community of SPSS users at UNT, RSS will move our SPSS support window to SPSS 16 and PASW Statistics at the end of August. Attempting to support versions of SPSS that are no longer in “the support window” according to SPSS, Inc. (recently acquired by IBM, by the way) is a very inefficient process through which we cannot support users of SPSS versions outside the support window in a timely manner. Our existing SPSS 15 license will expire at 11:59pm August 31, 2009 and it will not be renewed. As of 12:00am September 1, 2009, we will be supporting SPSS 16 and PASW Statistics 17 on both Windows and Intel-based OS-X operating systems.

Are you a current SPSS 15 user?

If you are currently using SPSS 15, what does this mean for you? First and foremost, it means you need to upgrade your SPSS 15 installation to PASW Statistics 17 before August 31, 2009! You can do this in one of two ways: The official way that you should upgrade your SPSS 15 installation to PASW Statistics 17 is to contact your area’s computing support staff and request PASW Statistics 17. Be sure to tell them that you already have SPSS 15 and need PASW Statistics 17 before the end of August. There is a second way, an unofficial way, for you to upgrade your SPSS 15 to PASW Statistics 17. If you are upgrading your SPSS 15 installation on a UNT machine not on campus (i.e. a UNT laptop) or a personal machine that you use for research that is not on campus, you can check out a PASW Statistics 17 DVD from me or one of the other two members of the Research and Statistical Support group (Drs. Richard Herrington and Michael Clark).  We check these DVDs out on a 48 hour basis during the week or over the weekend (check out Friday, return Monday). These DVDs have all the files necessary for you to install PASW Statistics 17 on your personal or UNT machine.

On a final note, our licensing has not changed in moving from one version to another of SPSS/PASW Statistics. UNT has an enterprise license of SPSS/PASW Statistics that is free to qualified members of the UNT community. In order to qualify for SPSS/PASW Statistics, you must be a full time faculty or staff member (full-time being defined as being 100% FTE, or retirement-eligible) engaged in teaching and/or research activities at UNT. Research assistants and graduate assistants do not qualify for SPSS/PASW Statistics software, although they may use it under the direction of a qualified professor or staff member. SPSS/PASW Statistics is available to all UNT students in most of the General Access Labs on campus.

Questions? Concerns?

If you have any questions or concerns about this transition, please contact me at Patrick.Mcleod@unt.edu . Until next month, happy computing!