Literature Index

The race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa to break the major league season home run record captured the attention of sports fans (and even non-sports fans) during the summer of 1998. In this article the game-by-game home run performance of each of these players is provided, along with some team statistics for each game. This dataset provides a rich set of possibilities of analyses in both introductory and advanced statistics courses, including graphical exploratory displays, categorical data analysis, analysis of variance, logistic regression, and smoothing methods for Poisson and binomial data.

In 1997 a skills inventory was developed to define the statistical literacy attribute for a University of Wollongong graduate. Identification of the inventory elements, however,represented only the first step in the process: Once the definition was accepted, there wasa need to translate it into a program that provided students with opportunities to developand demonstrate the required skills.Developing the statistical literacy program has raised a number of questions. In this paperwe reflect upon our efforts to resolve these and to translate the skills inventory into aneffective program that can be applied across the University. Our choice of an onlineenvironment has implications for others who are contemplating developing similarprograms. A particular challenge is being faced in pushing the boundaries of the relevanttechnologies as we strive to achieve a level of interactivity that we think is necessary toengage students in learning.

The case is made for a new type of statistical master’s program called MSc in Research Methods. The name of the course reflects the fact it is broader than one in statistics, partly because of the changing nature of research. It is designed to be accessible to two types of students: those who have a mathematical background and those who have a more applied background from their first degree. The program is intended primarily for working professionals so it is delivered in a way that is suitable for part-time students. The implementation of an e-learning version of this course in Kenya is also described.

The breakneck advance of multimedia capabilities and internet technologies offers an unprecedented opportunity to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Nowadays the use of multimedia resources and WWW-supported learning environments is a crucial issue in education and further education. Integrating visualization, animation, interactive experiments, sound and hotlinks to relevant internet sites opens completely new dimensions of learning. Modern multimedia may also incorporate new communication channels and could be part of emerging virtual educational networks.<br><br>Statistics seems to be particularily suitable for illustrating the benefits of multimedia-based teaching. On the one hand, Statistics connects quite different fields of application. This interdisciplinary character of the science can be well demonstrated by suitable videos and motivating examples closely related to people's life. On the other hand, multimedia represents an ideal platform for visualizing statistical concepts and for discovering basic statistical principles by self-driven experiments. Multimedia software for Statistics can go beyond closed instructional microworlds by offering properly maintained subject-specific gateways to recent statistical data and supplementary information from the rapidly growing internet.