476 – Teaching Introductory Statistics
Incorporating Open Portal Data into Courses in Statistics
Roberto Rivera
College of Business, University of Puerto Rico
Mario Marazzi
Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics
Pedro Torres
Math Department, University of Puerto Rico
The 2016 Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) College Report emphasizes six recommendations to teach introductory courses in statistics. Among them: use of real data with context and purpose. Many educators have created databases consisting of multiple datasets for use in class; sometimes making hundreds of datasets available. Yet `the context and purpose' component of the data may remain elusive if just a generic database is made available. We describe the use of open portal data in introductory courses. Countries and cities continue to share data through these portals. Hence, educators can find regional data that engages their students more effectively. We present excerpts from case studies that show the application of statistical methods to data on: crime, bankruptcy, rainfall, tourist travel, and others. Data clean up and discussion of results are recognized as important case study components. Thus the open portal data based case studies attend all GAISE College Report recommendations. Reproducible R code is made available for each case study. Example uses of open portal data in more advanced courses in statistics are also presented.