Frequently Asked Questions
- Clicking on the question will take you to the answer.
- 1.
Who are you guys?
- 2.
What kind of help is offered?
- 3.
What kind of assistance is not offered?
- 4.
How much do your services cost?
- 5.
How do I set up an appointment?
- 6.
How can I get a copy of "X" software?
- 7.
When are your short courses?
- 8.
What are your hours?
The research and statistical support group at the
University of North Texas (RSS) is staffed by two full-time and two part-time staff
employees. Dr.
Richard Herrington has degrees in psychology, mathematics and education, and is proficient in R, S-Plus, SPSS, SAS,
LISREL, Zope Web Server, and various other research oriented tools in Unix/Linux.
Patrick McLeod, the other full-time member, is currently
anticipating his master’s thesis defense in the political science department.
Patrick offers expertise in SAS, Stata, R, SPSS, Eviews, LaTeX and Unix/Linux
based research tools. Dr. Mike Clark also has a
Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology and offers part-time
assistance teaching, consulting and software support. Mike has
experience with SPSS, R, Splus and various other statistical software.
Research Support: We very much enjoy collaborating with the faculty
and students who come to our offices. We can suggest the various analyses
which can be performed on your data, along with the pros and cons of the
analyses. One can use us just to bounce ideas off of in even the earliest
stages to doing diagnostic checks at the end. Feel free to come by just to
chat about your research!
Knowledge Support: Statistics is a constantly evolving
enterprise that the applied researcher typically does not have time
to keep up with. That's where we come in. We have many
books, articles, software at our disposal to help you learn new
techniques to make your analyses better!
Software Support: We support various software
packages related to research endeavors such as SPSS, S-Plus, Stata, R, LaTex,
Zope, QSurvey, SAS, LISREL, and Eviews.
Programming: We can suggest strategies for specific problems, perhaps show you
example programs if you desire, and hopefully help your coding become more
efficient.
More on our policies can be found
here.
Software: We cannot give you help with software we do not
support (which includes some specific modules for SAS, SPSS etc.),
nor can we fix your supported software issue during non-office
hours. Also some issues may need to be resolved by network
managers for various colleges on campus.
Programming: We cannot write the programs for you.
Data analysis: While we can tell you what we think you
should do or what we would do in such a situation, we cannot make
the final decisions about how you should analyze your
data or perform the analysis for you. That in the end is left to you
and/or your committee and research collaborators. Also, we are
not in the business of helping you do poor research. We expect
our clients to have a vested interest in what they are researching
and are desirous of getting the most out of their data.
Meeting your deadline: You are one of many people
requiring our assistance along with other general duties we have at
RSS. While we can do what is possible within our means, research problems often take weeks or even months to solve so come for help
early well before your deadline.
Homework: We do not provide help for coursework. And
yes, we can tell.
Teach basic statistics: Unfortunately, we simply do not
have the time and resources to help you learn basic statistics (nor
should you be doing research without such knowledge). We
expect at minimum for you to have taken an introductory course so
that we can speak the same language.
Our services our free to the UNT community.
Appointments are made by filling out a request form
here. Depending on your needs you may end up having to work with someone
specifically, or anyone of us might be able to offer assistance.
Students can obtain copies of some supported software at the UNT
bookstore, and versions of varying degrees of functionality may be available for
different prices depending on the program. Stata must be purchased directly
through the RSS office. Full details of what is available and how
available software is can be found
here.
Full-time and/or benefits eligible staff and faculty may
check out a copy of SPSS from the RSS office to be returned immediately upon
installation. However, OUR LICENSE DOES NOT ALLOW THIS OPTION FOR STUDENTS, TFs,
TAs, RAs etc., nor can we check out software to a student for a faculty member.
Many students have thought they were in some way an exception to the rule based
on unfounded rumors or outright misinformation. There has yet to have been
one that was correct in that assumption.
If the dates are not posted they have not been decided upon
yet; please do not contact us asking when they will be. As soon as the dates are determined they are
immediately posted to the
web.
Although the schedules of the members of RSS are somewhat
variable depending on individual workload, we maintain coverage from 9:00 am to
5:00 pm.
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