Literature Index

Rather than talking about interesting students I have met over the year, this talk centers instead on how we can interest students in statistics. Two possible aspects of this issue are: a. how we can get more students to take one or more courses in statistics, b. how we can get more students to go into graduate studies in statistics.

The OECD has recently defined a "new vision" for its statistical activities, deciding to develop a new statistical information system based on a corporate strategy. One of the targets of this strategy is to increase the positive perception of OECD statistical work within the Organisation and users in Member countries (primarily in ministerial authorities, OECD Delegations, national statistical offices, media) and in other international organisations. To achieve this target, one of the actions commenced by the OECD has been the definition of a new policy for increasing the external communication to users and policy makers about the statistical activities and results. The paper describes the characteristics of this policy, focusing on the aspects more relevant for the relationships with private and public decision makers.

Statistics textbooks for undergraduates have not caught up with the enormous amount of analysis of Internet data that is taking place these days. Case studies that use Web server log data or Internet network traffic data are rare in undergraduate Statistics education. And yet these data provide numerous examples of skewed and bimodal distributions, of distributions with thick tails that do not follow the usual models studied in class, and many other interesting statistical curiosities. This paper summarizes the results of research in two areas of Internet data analysis: users' web browsing behavior and network performance. We present some of the main questions analyzed in the literature, some unsolved problems, and some typical data analysis methods used. We illustrate the questions and the methods with large data sets. The data sets were obtained from the publicly available pool of data and had to be processed and transformed to make them available for classroom exercises. Students in Introductory Statistics classes as well as Probability and Mathematical Statistics courses have responded to the stories behind these data sets and their analysis very well. The message in the stories can be conveyed at a descriptive or a more advanced level.

A computer program written in BASIC to simulate each solution is given and uses a built-in computer "random number generator".