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Activity Number:
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294
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Type:
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Contributed
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Date/Time:
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Tuesday, July 31, 2007 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
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Sponsor:
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Section on Statistical Education
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| Abstract - #309909 |
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Title:
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A Free Software Live DVD for Statistics
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Author(s):
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Panayotis Giannakouros*+ and Lihua Chen
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Companies:
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University of Missouri-Kansas City and The University of Toledo
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Address:
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2139 Collinway 4, Ottawa Hills, OH, 43606,
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Keywords:
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R ; free software ; open source
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Abstract:
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Configuring and teaching a system of interacting software packages can be problematic for an instructor. Even if some computer labs can be properly set up, users may want to work at a variety of campus and noncampus locations, making the investment in learning a set of tools difficult to motivate. We describe a suite of free and open source software packages relevant to statistics and demonstrate how these packages can be configured to integrate with each other and to run from a DVD on a Mac or PC. We find the DVD-burning capability available on newer desktop computers makes the distribution of a complete statistical environment feasible. This rapidly deployable and self-contained format is well suited to trying a new environment and to extending flexibility to users. We also report on student acceptance and use of these tools at the University of Toledo.
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