Resource Library

A humorous cartoon to initiate a conversation about censored data situations such as those seen with survival data. The cartoon is drawn by American cartoonist Jon Carter in 2015.

A cartoon suitable for use in teaching about various graphic displays. The cartoon is number 688 (January, 2010) from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe. Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites under a creative commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license.

It's Just STATA Code To Me is a song written by Dorry Segev of Johns Hopkins University that reflects on a number of issues in biostatistical data analysis. The song may be sung to the tune of Billy Joel's 1980 hit song "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me." The lyrics were written for Marie DIener-West's Biostatistics 653 course at Johns Hopkins that regularly asks students to create songs, videos, and poetry with biostatistics themes.

 Newsletter issue of 'StatNews' distributed by the Cornell Statistical Consulting Unit on survival analysis.

The goal of this text is to provide a broad set of topics and methods that will give students a solid foundation in understanding how to make decisions with data. This text presents workbook-style, project-based material that emphasizes real world applications and conceptual understanding. Each chapter contains:

• An introductory case study focusing on a particular statistical method in order to encourage students to experience data analysis as it is actually practiced.
• A guided research project that walks students through the entire process of data analysis, reinforcing statistical thinking and conceptual understanding.
• Optional extended activities that provide more in-depth coverage in diverse contexts and theoretical backgrounds. These sections are particularly useful for more advanced courses that discuss the material in more detail. Some Advanced Lab sections that require a stronger background in mathematics are clearly marked throughout the text.
• Data sets from multiple disciplines and software instructions for Minitab and R.

The text is highly adaptable in that the various chapters/parts can be taken out of order or even skipped to customize the course to your audience. Depending on the level of in-class active learning, group work, and discussion that you prefer in your course, some of this work might occur during class time and some outside of class. 

This site is a description of the mathematics behind survival analysis. It starts with a definition of the survival function. Then it discusses estimating the survival function with the Kaplan-Meier curve.  Then it discusses comparing survival curves. Finally, there is a discussion of Cox Proportional Hazards regression analysis.