Lancaster Postgraduate Statistics Centre

1. Lancaster Postgraduate Statistics Centre Ruth Allen Email: r.allen1@lancs.ac.uk Website: http://www.maths.lancs.ac.uk/psc Postgraduate Statistics Centre Lancaster University

2. HEFCE CETL initiative • Higher Education Funding Council of England’s (HEFCE) largest ever single funding initiative in teaching and learning • Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) initiative has two main aims: • to reward excellent teaching practice • to further invest in that practice so that CETL funding delivers substantial benefits to students, teachers and institutions A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

3. Lancaster CETL bid for a Postgraduate Statistics Centre • Emphasised the belief that research quality and research-led teaching is crucial in teaching PG statistics specialists • Well-trained Masters students provide a rich source of doctoral students and highly trained research statisticians • Counteract current shortage of young statisticians in the public and private sectors • £4.85m HEFCE grant, £1.05m from the university A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

4. I.Structure and function

5. Lancaster Postgraduate Statistics Centre 5 core objectives • To become a regional, national and international centre of excellence in the PG training and development of statisticians • To motivate, encourage and provide quantitative inquiry-led training for students from other disciplines • To give Lancaster PG students enhanced quantitative skills which will influence their whole approach to research • To develop critical thinking in the use of statistics at a level appropriate for each group of users • To reward existing excellence in PG teaching Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

6. New PSC Building Ground floor • 50 seater lecture theatre • Large computer room • Flexible teaching/IT room • Access Grid room First floor • Open plan learning zone • Consultancy Suite • Meeting room • MSc student room/library • 10 Offices

7. PSC Funded Staff • Director • Deputy Director • PSC Secretary • Facilitator/Research Associate • 3 indefinite lecturers • 3 fixed term lecturers • 2 Visiting Fellows • 3 Research Associates • Web Officer • Part-time Computer Technician A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

8. II. Activities and achievements to date

9. Ten Action Points • To extend and enhance existing opportunities for PG statistics students • To expand our innovative style of inquiry-led statistics teaching into other disciplines • To develop innovative biomedical courses within the new medical school • To develop collaborations with other institutions to provide specialist training • To provide motivational and focussed PG training workshops in a range of disciplines • To instigate a Master Class programme in emerging substantive areas with visiting experts • To develop a visiting fellow scheme • To expand the use of web-based teaching, video material and on-line datasets • To develop teaching excellence in our new statistics lecturers • To further enhance and reward the teaching excellence of all staff Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

10. 1. To extend and enhance existing opportunities for PG statistics students • MSc in Statistics with pathways (from 2008/09) in • Medical Statistics • Pharmaceutical Statistics • Environmental Statistics • MSc in Applied Social Statistics (from 2010) • Crime and Forensic Statistics • Health Research • Teaching Statistics up to pre-university level • MRes in Applied Social Statistics (from 2006/07) • PhD Programme – new DTC (from 2010) • Short course programme (expanded) A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

11. 2. To expand our innovative style of inquiry-led statistics teaching into other disciplines • MSc in Quantitative Finance (from 2010) • Faculty Research Training programmes for PhD students • Service courses with new/expanded modules: • Management Science • Psychology • Biology • Sociology • Criminology • Restructured consultancy service; advertising and outreach A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

12. 3. To develop innovative biomedical courses within the new Medical School • Progress delayed because of restructuring of Dept of Medical Education, Institute of Health Research and part of Biological Sciences into a new School of Health and Medicine • New MSc in Epidemiology planned - awaiting new Lecturer in Epidemiology • Introductory courses for Manchester Medical Students at Royal Preston Hospital A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

13. 4. To develop collaborations with other institutions to provide specialist training • Member of several national training consortiums: • ESRC National Centre for Research Methods • ESRC Regional Training Centre • National Taught Course Centre in OR (NATCOR) • Academy for PhD Training in Statistics (APTS) • Mathematical Access Grid Instruction and Collaboration Consortium (MAGIC) • Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education • RSS conference sessions on Teaching Stats in HE • Hosted CETL-MSOR conference 2008 • Utrecht University – psychometrics • MPS – pharmaceutical statistics courses A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

14. 5. To provide motivational and focussed PG training workshops in a range of disciplines • Forensic Science Programme • Statistics for Anthropologists (Dundee, Sept 2007) • Statistical Human Identification (Dundee, Mar 2007) • Forensic Evidence Evaluation (Cracow, June 2007) • Quantifying Forensic Evidence (Lancaster , Sept 2009) • RSS/EPSRC Graduate Training Programme • Event History Analysis and Introduction to Wavelet Analysis • Statistical Extremes meeting • Genomics – new distance learning course • Geospatial software workshop (very popular) A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

15. 6. To instigate a Master Class programme in emerging substantive areas with visiting experts • User-interfaces and graphics in R (Adrian Bowman, Richard Newton, April 2008) • Categorical/ordinal data analysis (Alan Agresti, Sept 2008) • Latent class and latent transition analysis (Linda Collins, Sept 2008) • Handling missing data (James Carpenter Mar 2009) • Modern smoothing methods: GAMLSS and P-splines in action (Mikis Stasinopoulos, Robert Rigby, Paul Eilers, Nov 2009) • Multivariate data analysis for environmental ecologists (Michael Greenacre, Raul Primicerio, Mar 2010) • Methods for sensitive questions (Peter van der Heijden, April 2010) • Latent variable and growth curve modelling (tbc, 2010) • Advanced R (tbc, June 2010) A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

16. 7. To develop a visiting fellow scheme • Two visiting lecturers from Federal University of Parana in Curitiba, Brazil 2006 • Visiting lecturer from Tehran University 2008 • Visiting lecturer from Sri Lanka 2009 • Visiting fellow from Health and Safety Executive 2009/10 • Visiting fellow from Utrecht University 2009/10 • Visiting fellow from RSS CSE 2010 A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

17. 8. To expand the use of web-based teaching, video material and on-line datasets • On-line e-learning courses (http://psc.maths.lancs.ac.uk/e-learning/) • Collaborations • Statistical Instruction Modules with Purposeful Learning Emphasis (SIMPLE) (http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/projects/simplevle) • Centre of e-Science – online resources for Sabre 5 (http://www.sabre.lancs.ac.uk/short_course.html) • Use of LUVLE for short courses & evaluation • Computer-aided assessment (Questionmark Perception) • Podcasting and Personal Response System • ePDP – new miniproject on prep for employment • On-line booking & payment system for short courses (2008) A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

18. 9. To develop teaching excellence in our new statistics lecturers • Mentoring of new staff • Peer review of lectures with constructive feedback • Annual module review process • Lancaster Certificate of Academic Practice • MSOR Statistics Lecturer Training Course • Training for lecturers in the use of flexible learning space for blended learning (new building) • CETL T&L seminar series • Host University Maths Forum A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

19. 10. To further enhance and reward the teaching excellence of all staff • Staff reward is an important part of the HEFCE remit • Improved working environment - new building • Teaching innovation points can be awarded as part of dept workload allocation • Teaching innovation integrated into staff appraisals • Funds for Continuing Professional Development • Small grants to improve existing courses • IT support for creating web-based teaching material and online datasets • Mini project scheme - 13 projects funded (max £5k each) A Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Postgraduate Statistics

20. Conclusion • There is a shortage of professional statisticians – need to train the statisticians of tomorrow • PGT student numbers are increasing but we need a fresh approach tailored to the current climate • Continuing Professional Development in statistics is crucial for building and supporting STEM education • Need to increase recognition of importance of statistics in HE and encourage new innovation in teaching statistics in HE