Free Statistical Consultation – UBC Department of Statistics

For students needing statistical consultation for your 590 research project, this may be of interest:

I am writing to let you know that, as in past years, free statistical consultation will be available this fall term, from graduate students enrolled in our practicum course STAT 551 (Statistical Consulting). Students in this course have already completed STAT 550 (Techniques of Statistical Consulting), and will be carrying out this academic activity under my overall supervision. Please consider whether the type of consultation described might be helpful to your research program.  If so, please submit your projects carefully following the guidelines in the announcement below.

John Petkau
Professor
2013-14 STAT 551 Instructor
Department of Statistics, UBC
E-mail: john at stat dot ubc dot ca

STAT 551, FALL Term of 2013-2014

Projects from all UBC-affiliated units and all levels of researchers, particularly including graduate students, are welcome.  Research projects requiring primarily advice on appropriate designs and methods of statistical analysis are ideally suited for STAT 551.  To allow each 551 student to be exposed to several projects, the total time spent on each project has to be limited.  Thus, smaller projects are particularly suitable.  Students will provide at most 2 to 4 hours of “face-to-face” consultation on a given project but will also provide a written report containing detailed advice and recommendations.

Due to this time limitation, STAT 551 projects typically do not involve carrying out data analyses.  Our Statistical Consulting and Research Laboratory (SCARL) has fee-for-service options in cases where further work is desired — check the CONSULTING link at www.stat.ubc.ca for more information.

To take advantage of this unique opportunity to receive free statistical advice, please submit your project description to me by e-mail (as an attached WORD document, to john at stat dot ubc dot ca), with a subject line clearly indicating STAT 551.

Your project description should consist of a concise description of your research problem in non-specialist language, with a clear indication of specific statistical issues on which advice is desired.  A description of at most one page is preferred.  Please only attach supplementary material if it is absolutely essential.  (For example, sending a grant proposal, together with a cover note saying you want advice on its statistical aspects without any attempt to describe the research problem in terms that can be understood by a Statistics graduate student or to clarify what specific statistical issues are of concern, is not an appropriate submission.)  A sample project description can be viewed online.

As soon as your project is approved for STAT 551, your description will be added to the list from which students will select projects.  Thus it is to your advantage to submit a clear description as soon as possible.

Students will begin selecting projects immediately at the start of the fall term.  The clearer your description, the more likely students are to select your project sooner rather than later and the more productive the initial consultation session is likely to be. Once your project has been selected, the student will contact you to arrange an appointment for an initial consultation session.  If, at any time prior to being contacted, you no longer require advice on your project, please let me know so the students do not spend time preparing for “inactive” projects.

Please note that a graduate student seeking advice via STAT 551 needs the permission of his/her supervisor.  An e-mail from the supervisor at the time of project submission suffices.