Research Data Services
Stata
What is Stata?
Stata is a statistical software package that provides tools for data management, statistical methods and data visualization. The name Stata stands for a syllabic abbreviation of Statistics and Data. Stata is a powerful tool to create publication-quality graphs and tables.
Why Stata?
Stata offers both a pull-down menus and command syntax. Stata commands are very intuitive and easy to use and learn. Stata has a powerful reproducible documentation and version control systems. These systems ensure that researchers will have the same results every time they run the commands. Stata offers a wide number of learning resources including short video on how to use Stata.
How to request and install Stata?
To request a copy of Stata/SE use the Software Request form from the IT Department.
SPSS
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was created in 1968 and has been used widely for about 52 years. In 2009, IBM acquired SPSS and changed its name to Statistical Product and Services Solutions. SPSS has four programs that researchers can choose to use based on their research needs; Statistics Program, Modeler Program, Text Analytics for Survey Program and Visualization Designer
How to request and install SPSS?
Seton Hall University offers a free SPSS license for students and faculty. You can request your license through this Seton Hall Department of IT.
SPSS interface
SPSS has two windows that are called: Data view and Variable view. In Data view windows, you can examine and edit your actual data. In Variable view, you can examine your variables names, variables types, variables measurement and other variables features. On the top left corner, there are pull-down menus to navigate SPSS. They are File, Edit, View, Data, Transform, Analyze, Graphs, Utilities, Extensions, Windows and Help. Statistical applications on SPSS can be done using the pull-down menus or using Command Syntax Language. This guide uses pull-down menus. In SPSS workshops, participants will use a combination of pull-sown menus and command syntax language
SPSS Syntax
SPSS users can analyze data using pull-down menus or using command syntax editor. It is preferable to use SPSS syntax to track every step of data analysis. SPSS syntax is a good practice to edit your commands if you made a mistake.
RStudio
What is RStudio?
RStudio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for the R language. R is a programming language for statistical computing and visualization. R provides a wide variety of statistical and graphic techniques. R language can be extended via packages; these packages are available through the CRAN ( Comprehensive R Archive Network) family of website.
Why RStudio?
Students and faculty do not have to worry about the software license because it is free!
RStudio is a free open source that means users have the freedom to create, modify and distribute codes. This freedom made R highly extensible. R popularity has increased noticeably in the recent years. Read this article
Installing R and RStudio?
Rstudio is avaiable in two format: Rstudio Desktop and Rstudio Server.
In order to download and use Rstudio Desktop, you have to download R first. Then you can download RStudio .
RStudio interface
RStudio has 4 panes or windows; Source pane, Environment pane, console pane and files pane.
- Source pane (top-left) : in this pane, users can write, edit and review their R scripts and they can view their data.
- Environment pane (top-right) has all of your data and all of the new objects that you have created. This pane also has the history of all your codes that you ran.
- Console pane (bottom-left) allow users to see the execution of their codes. Users can write their codes directly in the console.
- Files pane (bottom-right) this pane has multiple tabs to your working directory files and to the graphs you have created and to all packages that you installed. Search for new codes and packages documentation can be found here too.