Education and Instruction

Temple faculty may ask SSDL staff to come to their classes to offer an overview of the resources available for students. These presentations are tailored to the needs of specific classes and usually take one or two class periods. If students have ideas for projects, SSDL staff often can suggest appropriate datasets. In some cases, faculty may wish to bring their classes to SSDL so that students can hear the presentation and take some time to explore its resources.

SSDL staff also provide limited consulting on statistical and research methodology. For example, the staff may suggest statistical procedures appropriate to the nature of the data in a particular file, assist users in interpreting statistical results, suggest how best to organize data for analysis or presentation, or recommend appropriate software and hardware for a particular analytic problem.

SSDL, separately and jointly with other university groups, offers or sponsors occasional seminars, workshops, or colloquia on data files likely to have broad interest and on recent advances in research methodology.

Through its membership in the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), SSDL offers faculty and graduate students the opportunity to attend ICPSR's famed Summer Institute, which offers courses and workshops on a wide variety of analytical and methodological subjects. Information on the Summer Institute is made available each spring, and SSDL offers a modest subsidy for the travel costs.