Teaching Quantitative Methods in Social Science

Royal Statistical Society, Errol St, London.

Wednesday 27^th October 2010

This workshop style meeting takes advantage of the visit to the UK by Professor Chris Wild (Univ. of Auckland) and colleagues who have undertaken pathbreaking work in using visual methods to teaching key statistical concepts to new learners. Chris will be joined by colleagues from Lancaster Postgraduate Statistics Centre and the Economic and Social Data Service who will showcase some of the web resources available to help in teaching QM, and the challenge of developing statistical literacy in students. There will also be a presentation on the forthcoming ESRC web portal for QM teaching. ESRC’s new Chief Executive, Professor Paul Boyle, will start the day off with a review of ESRC’s efforts in quantitative methods.

This event is free to staff in higher education teaching quantitative methods in social science, but places are limited and prior registration required. A light buffet lunch will be provided.

To register for this event send an email with ‘QM Teaching workshop’ in the subject of the email to the address below. Please indicate your name, subject area and institution.

john.macinnes@ed.ac.uk

As part of its Placement Fellowship Scheme the ESRC welcomes applications from academics interested in working in a research capacity in the Office for National Statistics (ONS).  The Scheme encourages social science researchers to spend time within a partner organisation to undertake policy relevant research and to develop the research skills of partner employees.  The Fellowship will be jointly funded by the ESRC and ONS while the Fellow remains employed by his/her institution.

The fellowship itself concerns the review of the ONS Virtual Microdata Laboratory (VML).

Any enquiries please email: lesley.lilley@esrc.ac.uk or felix.ritchie@ons.gsi.gov.uk

Further ONS placement details in this Word document.

Closing date for applicants is 8th of July.

The ESRC seminar series on ‘Time-Space and Life-Course’ has reached Seminar 5, which is entitled: ‘Tools for the future: exploring the temporal and spatial ordering of daily life‘ takes place on Monday the 14th of September 2009. The event is to be held at Newcastle University.

More details here

Any queries regarding this event should be sent to Helen Jarvis, who is organising the event, at: helen.jarvis@newcastle.ac.uk

Two Post Doctoral Research Fellows are required to join the Morgan Centre at the University of Manchester, a research centre providing a focus for research and teaching in the field of personal life and relationship. These posts will provide the successful applicants with an opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of innovative research in this field and to develop their data handling, analysis and writing skills in a supportive academic environment.

One post will involve working with other members of staff to assist with, or develop, a small research project, the focus of which will depend on the research interests and experience of the successful applicant.

The other post is funded as part of the Realities “node” of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods. Again, the exact nature of the work will be determined by the interests and experience of the successful applicant. The work might involve assisting with or developing a small linked project(s), or alternatively working on one or both of our existing projects, or on aspects of Realities data (qualitative and/or quantitative). The successful applicant will have the opportunity to develop their skills in training and dissemination, if desired, through the Realities Training and Capacity Building Programme.

The successful applicants will have a PhD (completed or near completion) in a relevant field in the social sciences, a strong interest in the field of personal life, a methodological imagination, and good writing and interpersonal skills. The posts are tenable for one year from 1 October 2009.

Salary: £28,839 – £30,595 per annum.

Enquiries and further Information here.

2011 Census research: new data, linkage and outputs

Date: 13 May 2009
Location: Royal Statistical Society, London

This one-day conference showcases the work of nine research projects funded during 2008-09 by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). These have focused on developments in 2011 census data products, innovations in census data linkage through time and emerging web-based technologies for census data dissemination. The day is intended to inform debate concerning future research priorities surrounding the delivery of data from the 2011 UK censuses and the requirements of contemporary census research users.

09.30 Registration
Chair of meeting – Prof Mike Batty, University College London

10.00 Welcome and overview – Prof David Martin, University of  Southampton

2011 data developments

10.10 Towards 2011 output geographies: adapting and evaluating automated zone design methods for maintaining the 2001 output geographies – Samantha Cockings, University of Southampton

10.35 Microdata, research facilities and work practice in the UK Social Science Community Census data linkage – Dr Jo Wathan, University of Manchester

11.00 Developing Analyses of the England & Wales, Scottish and Northern Ireland Census Longitudinal Studies: health and mortality as a case study – Harriet Young, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
11.25 Coffee

Data linkage

11.45 Testing the feasibility of extending the Scottish Longitudinal Study back through time – Prof Paul Boyle, University of St Andrews

12.10 Web-based Spatio-temporal Interpolator for Census Area Statistics – Prof Nigel Walford and Dr Shaozhong Shi, Kingston University

12.35 Questions to presenters
12.50 Lunch

Emerging technologies for data dissemination

13.45 A Census data feed research network – Dr Oliver Duke-Williams, University of Leeds

14.10 Creating a Census (Meta)Data Feed – Justin Hayes, University of Manchester

14.35 DiaD – Data Integration and Dissemination – James Reid, University of Edinburgh

15.00 Census Geographic Information Visualisation (Censusgiv) – Dr Pablo Mateos, University College London

15.25 Discussion led by panel

16.00 Close

The meeting will take place at the Royal Statistical Society headquarters, 12 Errol Street, London, EC1Y 8LX

The following registration charges apply:
£20 RSS Retired or Student Fellows
£22 RSS CStat/GradStat
£25 RSS Fellows
£30 RSS Linked Associates
£40 None of the above
email conference@rss.org.uk   for a booking form

Map and directions