Software for Research

• Whole-genome SNP analysis on very large data sets.
• Powerful, deep and broad statistical models that improve specificity, sensitivity and stability of results.
• Efficient clustering tools that help scientists identify the biological pathways affected by treatment or disease.
• Proven design of experiment (DOE) tools for creating the most efficient experiments.
• Quality control tools that remove poor data from analyses.
• Dialogs that employ JMP Scripting Language (JSL) to launch SAS macros in the background.

For more information, see http://www.jmp.com/software/genomics/ .  Back to Table

SAS/Genetics allows you to:

• Study and obtain summary statistics on genetic markers more easily.
• Examine the relationship between two or more markers by combining genotype data with well-recognized methods.
• Find associations between markers and traits such as disease using case-control or family data more quickly. The flexibility and scalability of the application means any number of alleles can be utilized.
• Correct any inconsistencies caused by multiple testing effects on results, thus improving the quality of results.
• Interpret results more efficiently since disequilibrium and association data are displayed simultaneously in an easy-to-read format.

For more information, see http://www.sas.com/industry/pharma/genetics/ .  Back to Table

Data Acquisition & Web Surveys

Data acquisition software and hardware is used to collect data quickly while minimizing errors or to translate it from one file format to another. We support the software below and have similar tools that we can apply to get your data in the form you need.  Back to Table

SPSS mrInterview from SPSS the web survey design tool we Fully Support. This software is easy to use and the server that we use to collect the data is backed up nightly. You can get an account to use this server by making a half-hour appointment to get trained in the basics. You can also take one of our training workshops that we offer each semester. You can sign up for them at web.utk.edu/~training. For more details, see http://oit.utk.edu/research/websurveys.php . Back to Table

Stat/Transfer from Circle Systems can transfer data among spreadsheets, databases, data miners, statistics packages and text analysis packages. It is available only through RCS consultants. It is so easy to use that you usually don't even need to read its Help file. For details on the formats it supports, see http://www.stattransfer.com/ . We offer Full Support for its use.

LabVIEW from National Instruments is a graphical programming language that uses icons instead of lines of text to control laboratory instruments. It can help you create test and measurement, data acquisition, instrument control, data logging, measurement analysis, and report generation applications. Our license includes use only on UT-owned machines.

We offer Full Support for LabVIEW. We also offer a basic training workshop on it each semester. See http://oit.utk.edu/training for details. A LabVIEW CD-Based Training (CBT) CD is available from oit.utk.edu/software and the UT Computer Store.  Labview manuals are available in Hodges Library Reserve.  Back to Table

Data Mining

Data mining software automatically searches for useful patterns in your data. The three main types of models used in mining are statistical models, decision trees and neural networks. For ease of use, most data mining programs are controlled by drawing a diagram that represents the flow of data through various analyses. In the programs below, only AnswerTree uses a different method.  Back to Table

Answer Tree is a data mining tool from the SPSS Corporation that focuses on ease-of-use. It offers only decision tree methods of data mining because that method works with a wide range of data and the results are easy to understand. To begin using it, see Getting Started with AnswerTree listed in Topics under the Help menu, or stop by for a demonstration from an RCS consultant. The AnswerTree manual is available in Hodges Library reserve but is not included with the software. AnswerTree is a part of the SPSS Suite of software. You can read more about it at http://www.spss.com/answertree/  Back to Table .

Clementine is a comprehensive data mining package from SPSS, Inc. It is started as a separate program but it can read SPSS datasets as well as import data from many other sources. Since it is more difficult than AnswerTree and less capable than Enterprise Miner (it lacks affordable text mining), we currently offer Minimal Support for this package.

To learn the basics of Clementine, start the package and choose Tutorial from the Help menu. The manuals are in \Program Files\Clementine\12.0\documents. Clementine is the only product from the SPSS company that is limited to installation on computers owned by the University. It is available on Analysis.utk.edu, where three people can run it at the same time. Students can order the Clementine Grad Pack at the UC Computer Store. You can read more about it at http://www.spss.com/clementine/  Back to Table .

Enterprise Miner is a comprehensive data mining package from the SAS Institute that features all the popular methods for both numeric and text data. We offer Full Support for its use. Since it is an integral part of SAS, you start it by starting SAS and then choosing Run> Analysis> Enterprise Miner. You control it by drawing a diagram which represents the flow of data and results. To learn it, choose Getting Started with Enterprise Miner Software from the Help menu, or stop by for a demonstration by an RCS consultant. The manuals are online at http://support.sas.com/documentation/onlinedoc/miner/.  You can read more about the product's features at http://www.sas.com/products/miner/.  Back to Table

Insightful Miner from Insightful Corporation is a comprehensive data mining package that features all the popular methods for numeric data. It has an easy to use interface and also allows you to expand its capabilities using the S language. It also allows S programs to analyze far more data than S-PLUS can. To learn it, the Getting Started Guide is available from the Help menu. The manuals are stored in the product's \Program Files\Insightful\Insightful Miner 3.0\doc folder. You can read more about Insightful Miner at http://www.insightful.com/products/iminer.  Back to Table

Neural Connection from SPSS is a package that does data mining using only the neural network technique. To learn it, use the Help menu. The manual is on reserve at Hodges Library. It is part of the SPSS Suite of software.  Back to Table

Graphics and Visualization

Data graphics visually displays information about measured quantities. It helps you discover relationships and conveys information to others. Data Visualization is the subset of data graphics that deals with interactive, dynamically changing data displays that are used to explore data. Scientific Visualization is a type of data graphics that is used to visually analyze data from real objects such as a tornado, a brain or an airplane. Statistical models often do not exist to analyze the latter type of data.  The displays often use color to display a fourth dimension, such as velocity, tissue type or stress.  Animation (or freeze-frame) is often used to show changes through time.  Back to Table

DeltaGraph from Red Rock Software excels at snappy business graphics. We offer Minimal Support for it. It is part of the SPSS Suite of software, but future versions will not be included since the company sold the product.  Back to Table

Origin from OriginLab is a very powerful data graphics package. Its ability to transform data is supported by the entire set of routines developed by the Numerical Analysis Group (NAG). The package is available on Analysis.utk.edu where 2 people can run it at the same time. A series of tutorials is available on the Help menu. Online multimedia tutorials are available for viewing or downloading at www.originlab.com. The NAG functions are documented in the folder n:\Program Files\OriginLab\Origin75Server\NAG PDFs. We offer Minimal Support for Origin.  Back to Table

R & S-PLUS are the open source and commercial implementations of the S language, respectively. They both have data graphics and visualization capabilities that are quite good. New graphical techniques are often available in R & S-PLUS before they are added to other software. We offer Minimal Support for these packages, although we are studying R for possible Full Support in the near future. For more details, see R & S-PLUS below in the Statistics section.  Back to Table

SPSS Graphics is a data graphics package for which we offer Full Support. It is extremely flexible and SPSS Inc. claims it can create every type of data graph. Its graphical user interface can create a reasonable range of graphs but its full power resides in its Graphics Production Language. Since it is built into the popular SPSS package, it offers a set of popular graphs integrated into most analyses. Even if you are not interested in doing statistics, this is a good choice for data graphics. To learn to use it, take one of our training workshops or make an appointment for a quick one-on-one tutorial. The tutorial listed under the SPSS Help menu includes a brief overview of SPSS Graphics.  The SPSS Base User's Guide describes its use in more detail. The SPSS manuals are a part of the SPSS Suite.  Back to Table

SAS Stat Studio is a data visualization package. It can display a rotating 3D scatter plot of, for example, blood pressure, cholesterol level and salt intake. If you then display a bar chart of gender, clicking on the bar for males will cause the males in the scatter plot to become highlighted so you can quickly see if males differ from females. All plots are interactive and linked in a similar manner. Stat Studio come as a part of the SAS System. To learn Stat Studio, read its manual at http://support.sas.com/documentation/onlinedoc/ . You can also make an appointment with one of our consultants for a brief one-on-one tutorial.  Back to Table

SAS/SPECTRAVIEW does scientific visualization but SAS Institute has stopped developing the product. We currently offer Minimal Support for it.  Back to Table

SAS/Graph is a set of graphic procedures that are built into the SAS system. This product was greatly improved in SAS 9.2 and now offers superb quality graphics that are easy to program. The manuals are online at http://support.sas.com/documentation/onlinedoc/ . We offer Full Support for this product.  Back to Table

SigmaPlot from Systat Software is particularly good at scientific graphics. We offer Minimal Support for it.  Back to Table

Stata SE from StataCorp is quite good at 2D data graphics. For details, see Stata under Statistics below. We offer Minimal Support for it.  Back to Table

Image Analysis

You can analyze images both quantitatively and qualitatively. To analyze video, you can capture key frames and then apply image analysis to them.

Quantitative image analysis extracts measurements from images such as photographs, microscope images and satellite imagery. The software can count things such as cells, insects or any type of spots. You can use it to measure the length of items in any units you specify and angles in degrees.  You can also calculate area in square units or percent coverage.

Qualitative image analysis helps you classify images or parts of images. For example, a psychologist might study photographs of people interacting and manually select parts of the image that contain various types of body language. Art historians might classify various types of symbolism used by different artists and then cross tabulate their findings to compare the artists, or track their changes through time.

   Back to Table

ImageJ is a free, open source image analysis program for Windows or Macintosh. It is easy to learn and it analyzes images quickly. We offer Full Support for it. You can get started with it by taking our hands-on workshop towards the beginning of each semester. The manual that comes with it is also a good way to learn it. It is installed on the Analysis.utk.edu server and is available for free download at http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/ .   Back to Table

QDA Miner is an easy-to-learn package for qualitative analysis of images as well as text. You simply import your images, create "codes" or categories to apply to your images, use the mouse to draw boxes around parts of your images and then drag a code onto each box. When finished it will count the number in each category, cross-tabulate codes with other variables such as artist and even perform cluster and multi-dimensional scaling if you like.

QDA Miner is available for free in the Internet Downloads area of http://oit.utk.edu/software . It is also available on Analysis.utk.edu, where it can be used by up to 50 people at once. We offer Full Support for it and offer a workshop on it each semester. You can also download the manual from http://provalisresearch.com .  Back to Table

SigmaScan  from Systat Software is similar to ImageJ, but somewhat more powerful. Although UT has no site license for it, it is available on the Analysis.utk.edu server. We offer Minimal Support for it.   Back to Table

Mapping and Geographic Information Systems

Mapping software ranges from tools that display a static statistical theme such as population by country (thematic maps) to full-blown Geographic Information Systems (GIS) that allow you to input, update, query, analyze and display geographic information. If you need full GIS capabilities we recommend taking a course in the Geography Department to learn the ArcGIS products from the ESRI Company.   Back to Table

R & S-PLUS are the open source and commercial implementations of the S language, respectively. They both have data mapping capabilities that are fairly basic but do offer advanced geospatial analysis. We offer Minimal Support for these packages. See R & S-PLUS below in the Statistics Packages section.   Back to Table

SPSS Maps is a thematic mapping program. It does thematic maps of the world to a fine level of detail and does so with minimal effort. It is integrated into the main SPSS product making it easy to display the results of a statistical model across a map. SPSS Inc. has stopped developing this package. We offer Minimal Support for it.  Back to Table

SAS/GIS is a powerful GIS package, but its usage on campus is so low that we offer Minimal Support for its use. Documentation is available for it at http://support.sas.com/documentation/onlinedoc/ .   Back to Table

SAS/Graph does thematic maps from within the SAS system. We offer Minimal Support for this product.   Back to Table

Text Analysis

Various methods of text analysis include qualitative analysis, content analysis, latent semantic analysis, linguistic analysis. The latter three methods are also referred to as text mining.

Qualitative analysis programs help you manage and search your text and then manually assign codes and/or notes to sections of text. They also may contain tools to build theories about relationships among the concepts. The numerical codes can be exported to statistical packages if desired. Qualitative analysis packages are usually used for small numbers of long documents such as interview transcripts. This type of software is also known as Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software, or CAQDAS. A helpful review of this software is located at:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/mmethods/research/software/caqdas_comparison.html .

Content analysis software uses a "dictionary"  of words and phrases to automatically classify documents. The dictionaries may be standardized collections of categories used by many researchers or may be custom dictionaries created for a single research project. Standardized dictionaries classify words into linguistic categories, such as nouns and verbs, or psychological categories such as personality types. There is even a scale which attempts to determine when someone is telling the truth or lying. Researchers use custom dictionaries to study areas such as open-ended survey questions, interviews and speeches. Tools such as cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling can assist in creating custom dictionaries. 

Latent semantic analysis automatically extracts the concepts contained in text documents. In simplified statistical terms, it factor analyzes the text to extract concepts and then clusters the documents into similar categories based on the factor scores. This might be used to analyze interviews, open-ended questions on surveys, collections of email or study the literary style of authors. It is most useful when analyzing hundreds or thousands of documents, but can be applied to smaller numbers of short documents if they describe a small number of concepts.

Linguistic analysis applies an understanding of the rules of language to extracting concepts and/or summarizing documents.

Text Mining is a loosely defined term that applies any of the automated methods above to large volumes of text.

Due to the complexity of importing data into text analysis packages, our Minimal Support level does not include importing data. However, Text Miner has by far the most extensive ability to import and export documents, making it possible to get text from many sources into some of the other packages listed below.  Back to Table

ATLAS.ti from Scientific Software Development is a qualitative analysis package. Its name stands for the German words that translate: archive for technology, the life-world and everyday language, text interpretation. The manual is available on the Help menu under Other Resources. You can read more about ATLAS.ti at http://www.atlasti.de/. It is available on Analysis.utk.edu where 5 people can run it at once. The manual is there in the directory \Program Files\Scientific Software\ATLASti\Program\Help. We offer Minimal Support for this product.   Back to Table

NUD*IST / N6 from QSR International is a qualitative analysis package. Its name stands for Non-numeric Unstructured Data, Indexing, Searching and Theorizing. From the makers of NVivo, it handles larger data sets but makes you choose in advance the unit of text to code (word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, document). QSR is no longer developing this product. The company web site is http://www.qsr.com.au/. It is available on Analysis.utk.edu where 6 people can use it at once.  Back to Table

QDA Miner / WordStat / Simstat is a trio of programs from Provalis Research that supports a wide range of text analysis. QDA Miner is an easy-to-learn package for qualitative analysis. WordStat uses the content analysis approach to help you use or create dictionaries of categories that you can then quickly apply to large numbers of documents. Since you can start WordStat from within QDA Miner, you can apply the content analytic approach to all your documents, or just the sections that you manually coded. Simstat is a basic statistics package that can apply quantitative analyses to the output from either of the other two packages.

The standardized dictionaries installed with WordStat are: WordNet 2.0, the Regressive Imagery Dictionary (RID) and Roget's Thesaurus and the Forest Value Dictionary. For a demo of WordStat, go to http://www.provalisresearch.com, click on WordStat and then Flash Demo. For details about the dictionaries, go to the same page and click on Dictionaries.

These three packages are available for free download at the Internet Downloads area of  http://oit.utk.edu/software.  They are also available on Analysis.utk.edu where 50 people can run them simultaneously. That server includes the dictionary for Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). We offer Full Support for these products. The best way to get started with these packages is to work through their excellent help files. The manuals are essentially printed versions of the help files.  Back to Table

SPSS Text Analysis for Surveys  is a linguistic package designed to help you categorize open-ended survey items. Its ability to differentiate positive from negative responses is quite helpful. It is limited to around 5,000 responses of a page or less.

This package is easy to learn using the manual that is included with it. It is available for use on your Windows computer at no charge. We offer Full Support for this package. You can learn more about it at http://www.spss.com/textanalysis_surveys/ .  Back to Table.

SAS Text Miner uses the latent semantic analysis approach to help you automatically discover underlying themes, cluster the documents into homogeneous groups and/or classify new documents into categories. It can read text from many different formats such as Excel, PowerPoint, RTF, Text, Word, WordPerfect, PDF and even entire web sites. To learn it, see Introduction to Text Mining in the Enterprise Miner help files. To read more about it, see http://www.sas.com/products/textminer/ . It is available for your Windows computer via a site license and in our computer labs. It is the only part of SAS that runs exclusively on Microsoft Windows. We offer Full Support of its use.  Back to Table

Scientific, Engineering and Mathematics

This category includes a variety of tools of interest to scientists and engineers. See also the section on Graphics & Visualization.   Back to Table

Xming  allows your PC to display X-Windows output from other computers, especially those running Linux or UNIX. This allows you to control our Linux or UNIX server computers using a graphical user interface similar to Windows or Macintosh. Most of our UNIX software provides graphics output only in an X-Window environment. To learn how to configure Xming, see http://oit.utk.edu/research/HowtoInstallXmingForWindows.pdf . We offer Full Support for Xming. It is available for your computer from http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes/ and in our computer labs.  Back to Table

Excel from Microsoft is very flexible and we offer Full Support for its use on research problems. The only thing we do not recommend using Excel for is statistical analysis. There is however an Excel add-in for R that we do recommend for statistics. Excel is also useful as a data entry tool for research data as long as you know the proper way to structure your spreadsheet. See http://oit.utk.edu/research/HowToUseExcelForDataEntry.pdf for details. Excel is available for your PC or Macintosh and is available on those machines in our computer labs. To learn how to use it, sign up for training at http://web.utk.edu/~training Back to Table.

FORTRAN is one of the oldest programming languages and it is still widely used in research. As its name implies, it is best at mathematical FORmula TRANslation. We offer Full Support for this language, which is available for your computer and on our Linux and UNIX servers (not in our computer labs).  Back to Table

Maple from Maplesoft is a symbolic math package because it can work with formulas rather than just numbers. It lets you enter a problem in the form of a mathematical formula, and returns answers that can be a number or another formula. It can perform tasks such as factoring equations or taking derivatives or integrals. For more details, see http://www.maplesoft.com.  It is available for your computer running Windows, Macintosh or Linux and it is installed on the Windows computers in our labs. We offer Full Support for this package.

There are several ways to learn Maple. We offer a Maple Basics training workshop that we teach each semester. You can sign up at http://web.utk.edu/~training. For a general overview of Maple, within a Maple session, select Help>>New Users>> and then select either Quick Tour or Full Tour. Online Maple tutorials can be downloaded from the Maple Application Center at www.mapleapps.com/tutorial.shtml. Manuals are available in Hodges Library Reserve.  Back to Table

Mathematica from Wolfram Research is a symbolic math package because it can work with formulas rather than just numbers. It lets you enter a problem in the form of a mathematical formula, and returns answers that can be a number or another formula. It can perform tasks such as factoring equations or taking derivatives or integrals. For more details, see http://www.wolfram.com/ . Mathematica is available on Analysis.utk.edu where 7 people can use it at once. We offer Minimal Support for it since we have a site license for Maple, a very similar product. To learn Mathematica, see the Tutorial that is available when you start it and under the Help menu.  Back to Table

MATLAB from The MathWorks is a MATrix LABoratory package that excels at solving problems in matrix algebra. It is the most widely used package in Engineering and is popular in many other scientific fields. For more details see http://www.mathworks.com.

You can install MATLAB on your Windows, Mac or Linux computer by following the directions under Internet Downloads at http://oit.utk.edu/software . To learn MATLAB, you can use the tutorial that is available under Help > MATLAB Help > Getting Started, or you can sign up for our MATLAB Basics workshop, which is taught every semester. You can sign up at http://web.utk.edu/~training. We offer Full Support for the use of MATLAB.  Back to Table

MestReC from Mestrelab Research is a program that analyzes and visualizes nuclear magnetic resonance data. For more details, see http://www.mestrec.com/ . MestReC is available on Analysis.utk.edu where 5 people can use it at once. We offer Minimal Support for it. To learn MestReC, see http://ion.chem.utk.edu/MestRe-C.pdf or its Help files.  Back to Table

Scientific Notebook from MacKichan Software is a word processing package that specializes in handling mathematical and statistical formulas. It can save its output in the T_EX format that is required by many journals that make heavy use of formulas. It is available on Analysis.utk.edu where ten people can run it at the same time. We offer Minimal Support for it. For a quick tour of the Scientific Notebook features, within a Scientific Notebook session, select Help > Contents > Take a Tour.  For a more comprehensive tutorial, select Help > Contents > Learn the Basics.  Back to Table

Statistics

Statistics packages are perhaps the most widely used type of research software. Over half of all theses and dissertations at UT require the use of statistics. Stat packages can summarize data into numbers such as percents or means and optionally test whether groups differ on such measures. It can also measure the strengths of relationships among measurements and make predictions from them as well. The packages for which we currently offer Full Support in this area are the SAS System and SPSS. Those products are covered on the following pages. Statistics packages for which we offer Minimal Support are JMP, R, S-PLUS and Stata.

A package that we do not recommend for statistical analysis is Microsoft Excel. It is good for data entry, for creating new variables, for manipulating data and for creating graphics. However, we do not recommend its use for statistical analysis. The flexibility that it offers makes it easy to do analyses that make little sense, its range of analysis methods is limited and its statistical algorithms have problems, especially in the presence of missing values. Its ability to sort columns independent of one another is a particularly dangerous feature that essentially destroys a dataset. There is however an Excel add-in that allows it to do statistics with R. To see how best to use Excel for data entry, see http://oit.utk.edu/research/HowToUseExcelForDataEntry.pdf .  Back to Table

Amos (Analysis of MOment Structures) from SPSS  analyzes Structural Equations Models (SEM) by either drawing a path diagram or via a command language. These models are also known as LISREL models, confirmatory factor analysis, analysis of covariance structures, path analysis or causal modeling. The web page is www.smallwaters.com, and SEM information is at www.gsu.edu/~mkteer/semnet.html.

We offer Full Support for Amos. To learn Amos, we recommend working through the examples of the excellent Amos User’s Guide, which is on reserve at Hodges Library. A Programmer's Reference is available in the \Program Files\AMOS 5\Documentation folder. Amos is available for your PC and in our computer labs. It is part of the SPSS Suite of software. To help Macintosh and Linux users access it, it is also available on Analysis.utk.edu where 5 people can run it at once.  Back to Table

EQS from Multivariate Software analyzes Structural Equations Models (SEM). These models are also known as LISREL models, confirmatory factor analysis, analysis of covariance structures, path analysis or causal modeling. It handles categorical variables better than Amos currently does. The web page is http://www.mvsoft.com , and SEM information is at www.gsu.edu/~mkteer/semnet.html. To learn EQS, see the User's Guide available on the Help menu. We offer Minimal Support of EQS. It is available on Analysis.utk.edu, where 2 people can run it at once.  Back to Table

HLM from Scientific Software International is a package that does Multilevel Models that are also often called Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM). An example of a multilevel model is a regression equation showing how studying increases grades. That relationship may differ at different levels such as teacher within schools within districts. Although we offer Full Support for the solution of multilevel models using SPSS and SAS, we currently offer Minimal Support of the HLM program. You can learn HLM from the Help files, which contain the entire manual. However, to understand the manual, you also need the book by the program's developers, Raudenbush and Bryk, Hierarchical Liner Models, Applications and Data Analysis Methods. HLM is available on Analysis.utk.edu where 2 people at a time can run it.  Back to Table

JMP from SAS Institute is a statistics and graphics package that is easy to learn. We offer Minimal Support for JMP because it is not widely used at  UT for theses and dissertations, but it’s a very good package. It has a range of statistical procedures that is adequate for most researchers and its design of experiments ability is top notch. Running an analysis is as easy as selecting variables and options in dialog boxes. However, SAS and SPSS offer much more extensive selections of procedures. JMP's main strength is its interactive visualization capabilities which make data exploration quick and easy. However, since the displays are optimized for exploration, they are not publication quality. JMP also offers the best Design of Experiments capability. 

The best way to learn JMP is to read the Introductory Guide which is available in the JMP folder and under the Start menu in Windows. We offer Minimal Support for JMP. The product web page is www.jmp.com. JMP is available for your own computer and in our computer labs on both Windows and Macintoshes. Although a LINUX version is available, we do not yet have it due to low demand.  Back to Table

LISREL from Scientific Software International analyzes Structural Equations Models (SEM). Variations of these models include confirmatory factor analysis, analysis of covariance structures, path analysis or causal modeling. LISREL is viewed by many as the most powerful and most difficult to learn of the SEM packages we have available. It is available on Analysis.utk.edu where 2 people can run it at once. We offer Minimal Support for its use. The manual is available in the folder \Program Files\lisrel854\IBOOK.  The web page is http://www.ssicentral.com/lisrel/mainlis.htm , and SEM information is at www.gsu.edu/~mkteer/semnet.html.  Back to Table

Mplus from Muthén & Muthén analyzes Structural Equations Models (SEM) that can include both continuous and categorical latent constructs. As their web site states, it can also, "both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, single-level and multilevel data, and data that come from different populations with either observed or unobserved heterogeneity. Analyses can be carried out for observed variables that are continuous, censored, binary, ordered categorical (ordinal), unordered categorical (nominal), counts, or combinations of these variable types." The web page is http://www.statmodel.com/mplus_index.shtml, and SEM information is at www.gsu.edu/~mkteer/semnet.html. To learn Mplus, we recommend the program's help files. We offer minimum support for this package. Mplus is only available on Analysis.utk.edu where 1 person can run it at a time.  Back to Table

R & S-PLUS are two implementations of the S language. R is the free, open source version with a basic graphical user interface called R Commander. Being open source, there are free versions available to run on many different types of computers at http://www.r-project.org/ . R Commander is available at http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Misc/Rcmdr/ 

S-PLUS is the commercial version with its own, very polished, graphical user interface. R is used by many researchers to develop new methods of analysis and graphics. As a result, researchers who need to apply the latest methods can often find them available in R first. A list of many such programs is available at the R Project link above. Because of R's advantage in flexibility and cost, we are considering not renewing our S-PLUS site license for 2009. We currently offer Minimal Support for these packages, but we are likely to offer Full Support of R in the near future.   Back to Table

R is available for your Windows, Mac or Linux computer and on our high performance Linux cluster.

We offer Minimal Support for these packages, although we are considering offering Full Support for R. The best way to learn how to use S-PLUS is to read the Getting Started Guide, which is available in Online Manuals under the Help menu. Although the RCS offers Minimal Support for it, we can contact the company technical support line on your behalf. The S-SPLUS company web site is www.insightful.com. You can learn R by working through An Introduction to R, available at http://www.r-project.org under Documentation. If you already know SAS or SPSS, you can learn R by reading the free document, R for SAS and SPSS Users at http://RforSASandSPSSusers.com .   Back to Table

SamplePower helps you plan your study by figuring out the smallest number of subjects (or experimental units) you would need to find a significant result. To learn this package, read the SamplePower manual on reserve at Hodges Library. SamplePower is available for your PC and is on the PCs in our computer labs. It is part of the SPSS Suite of software. We offer Full Support for its use.  Back to Table

SAS  from SAS Institute is a powerful statistics package and we offer Full Support for its use. Comes standard with more statistics than any other package except R. It contains multiple menu systems, multiple programming languages and pre-written solutions to most commonly seen research problems. The package comes with over 70 manuals!  Luckily, most people don’t need more than a few of these manuals for their research needs. SAS used to stand for Statistical Analysis System, but it grew far beyond statistics into areas such as applications development and data warehousing. So the SAS Institute now says that SAS doesn't stand for anything. SAS is available for your own computer, on Analysis.utk.edu, in the Humanities computing lab and on our UNIX system.

You can control SAS many different ways. The most widely used method is the SAS programming language. You learn commands and type them in to control your analysis. Enterprise Guide is the main menu-based interface to SAS that is easy to use. SAS Stat Studio is another menu system has extensive data visualization capabilities. SAS is available for Windows, Linux and most UNIX computers.

The best way to learn SAS is to take one of our training workshops that we offer each semester. You can sign up for them at web.utk.edu/~training. You can also make an appointment with one of our consultants to get an overview of SAS and get started using your data. There is a tutorial available on the Help menu in Enterprise Guide. There is also computer based training called SAS/TUTOR, but it focuses on learning the SAS language rather than its analytic procedures. It is available at  http://web.utk.edu/sas/basic.html and at http://web.utk.edu/sas/advanced.html . The SAS manuals are also quite complex and not a good place to begin learning SAS. They are however an excellent reference and they are available at http://support.sas.com/documentation/onlinedoc/.  Back to Table

SPSS from the SPSS Inc. is by far the most widely used statistics package at UT, and we offer Full Support for it. It does a wide range of statistics and graphics and it is easy to learn and use. It is also easy to transfer data from SPSS into SAS so that any esoteric analysis can then be run in SAS. SPSS also has a programming language that you can use to automate repetitive tasks, to leave an audit trail of the steps you took and to get the package to do something that it was not originally designed to do. It is available for your computer and in our computer labs (both PCs and Macintosh) and on Analysis.utk.edu.

The best way to learn SPSS is to take one of our training workshops that we offer each semester. You can sign up for them at web.utk.edu/~training. You can stop by our walk-in support area on the second floor of Stokely Management Center for an overview by one of our consultants. There is also an introductory tutorial available in SPSS under Help. The other help files are also very easy to learn from.  Back to Table

Stata SE from StataCorp is a general purpose statistics package that is designed to be easily extendable. There are many hundreds of extensions available for it in Internet repositories, all free of charge.  Stata is particularly strong in time series, panel data and the analysis of complex, non-random samples.  To learn Stata, see the program's help files or see the manuals on reserve at Hodges Library. Stata is available on Analysis.utk.edu where 14 people can run it at the same time. You can read more about it or order it at:  http://www.stata.com/ . For pricing, it is important to know that UT has "GradPlan" educational pricing--be sure to select that option when placing your order. That makes a perpetual license for Stata $145 and a one-year student copy $45. Note that we do not provide consulting support for Stata at this time.  Don Bruce in CBER is the GradPlan representative on campus.  Feel free to contact him with your questions at dbruce@utk.edu or 974-6088.  Back to Table

SUDAAN from RTI International is SUrvey DAta ANalysis software that can analyze data from complex samples such as cluster or stratified designs. For example, making a random selection of high schools from which you randomly select students, is no longer a simple random sample. As a result, the standard procedures from SAS and SPSS do not give the proper results. For this type of data we offer Full Support for the use of SAS' specialize procedures (e.g. PROC SURVEYREG) but provide Minimal Support of SUDAAN.

SUDAAN is available on Analysis.utk.edu where 3 people can run it at the same time. To learn SUDAAN, read the User’s Manual which is on reserve in Hodges Library and is in the server folder N:\Program Files\SUDAAN\Release900\Manual. You can download example programs from http://www.rti.org/sudaan/. Click on About SUDAAN and then Examples. Be sure to change the location of the data file for any example program before running it.   Back to Table