Summary: statistics.com courses

[Jean V Adams <jvadams@usgs.gov>]

I asked the s-news list members for
feedback on courses from statistics.com.  Thanks to SR Millis, Laura
Chihara, Chris Andrews, David Lorenz, and Peter Bruce for responding.

I received 5 replies: 
3 were negative responses from people
that have taken or are taking a statistics.com course, 
1 was a negative response from a person
that had not taken a course, and 
1 was a response from someone at statistics.com
offering additional information.

As an aside, two people recommended
other internet-based courses ... from SAS and RIT (Rochester Institute
of Technology).

Full responses and my original posting
are pasted below.

JVA

---

SR Millis:  I took one of Statistic.com's
courses in regression. IMHO, it was awful. The instructor simply assigned
chapters to read in his book along with exercises. There was no active
teaching. You could post questions to the website but the responses were
not as helpful as posting to any of the statistical listservs. And the
course was expensive for what I received. I would have gotten as much had
I simply gone to the Statistics.com website, determined what books would
be used by the course, and then worked through the book on my own. In my
experience, the best of the internet-based courses are those put on by
SAS. Of course, all of the analyses are done in SAS, but the course content
was well-organized and up-to-date. I found the SAS course on GEE quite
good.

Laura Chihara:  I took a gene _expression_
course and was sorely disappointed. The instructor just listed what page
to read from his book and assigned some exercises. There was a message
board but most of the questions were answered by other students. The cost
of the course was not justified at all.

Chris Andrews:  I am currently
taking a statistics.com course.  Unfortunately my experience has been
like that of SR Millis, who posted to the listserv.   I read the teacher's
text, had a few questions answered via a discussion board, and answered
some vague homework questions.  I got the impression that only a few
(<=5) people were in the course and only one was particularly active.
 There was no student-student interaction via the discussion board.
 I don't want to make any sweeping claims based on a single course
but I will think hard before joining another.

David Lorenz:  I looked into the
courses that were offered and was not overly impressed. I did not take
any. I recently found the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) offers
online courses in stats. I don't know if you are interested in those classes,
but they seemed like better classes and I'll probably try one this spring.
Here's the URL: http://www.rit.edu/~625www/online.php3 

Peter Bruce:  I saw your posting
on the S-News group concerning our courses.  You mentioned the lack
of objective reviews, aside from the testimonials on the site.  While
there are as yet no published reviews of statistics.com courses (in general,
I have not seen much in the way of published reviews of professional development
courses), there is a review of one of our courses scheduled to be published
early next year in "Information Processing and Management" and
I would be happy to share it with you on condition that it not be released
(it is not ours to release).  Also, I would be happy to share with
you complete numerical evaluations of  recent courses by all respondents
in the courses, as well as the extent of "repeat business" amongst
our customers (don't know that number offhand - would have to do a spot
check).

---

S-news folks, 

This query is not (directly) S-PLUS
related, but I am posting it here because I wanted to get the opinion of
the s-news community. 

I am considering taking a course from
statistics.com (http://www.statistics.com/content/courses.html), and would
be interested in hearing feedback from those that have taken courses with
them.  (I was unable to find any objective reviews on-line ... only
the testimonials on the statistics.com website.)  Please respond to
me, and I will summarize for the group.  Thanks. 

JVA 

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Jean V. Adams
Statistician
U.S. Geological Survey
Great Lakes Science Center
c/o Marquette Biological Station
1924 Industrial Parkway
Marquette, MI 49855  USA
phone: 906-226-1212
FAX: 906-226-3632
web site: www.glsc.usgs.gov
e-mail: jvadams@usgs.gov