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News from the SCC
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For more information regarding the software discussed below, including how to learn it, how we support it and where to get it, see http://oit.utk.edu/scc/software.
Here is the news the last news that was sent out May 2, 2006:
1. IMPORTANT CHANGES FOR SAS
Our contract with SAS Institute expires this May and the new contract no longer includes unlimited copies for personal computers. With the actual cost of SAS dependent upon the number of users, we must share that cost with PC SAS users.
Starting May 15, 2006, the cost of a PC (Windows or Linux) SAS license for teaching and research purposes will be $24 on the UTK campus. The price on other campuses will be $36 unless they too choose to subsidize it. For administrative use at any campus, it will cost $385 per computer. The cost of a set of CDs is an additional $5. Sharing a set of CDs is a good way to save money so long as you have a valid license.
The copy of SAS in the download area of http://oit.utk.edu/software will no longer include a license and you will have to purchase that separately.
For use that benefits outside organizations including charities or government agencies, contact SAS Institute for commercial pricing.
We currently have SAS available on all 700 OIT lab computers. Because of the new contract, we will keep SAS installed only in the Humanities computer lab. People in other labs can access SAS on the Analysis.utk.edu terminal server. See http://analysis.utk.edu for details.
Future changes may include the removal of SAS from our Solaris servers. Usage of SAS on those servers is very light but if this affects your work, please contact Bob Muenchen at (965) 974-5230 or BobM@utk.edu .
A new piece of software added to the contract is the SAS/ESRI Bridge. It links SAS to the ESRI Arc/GIS software. It will be available after May 15. You can read more about it at:
http://www.sas.com/products/bridgeforesri/ .
2. STATISTICS PACKAGE OPTIONS
If the per-copy pricing of SAS makes you want to consider alternatives, there are several good ones. We still centrally fund SPSS, JMP and S-PLUS. Of the general-purpose statistics packages, we still offer full consulting support for only SAS and SPSS, but if others become more popular on campus, we will consider supporting them. You can read a comparison of statistics packages (and a follow-up on R) at:
http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/technicalreports/
An excellent and free open source statistics package is "R". It is an open source version of the S language in S-PLUS. S & R are very different from most statistics packages because anyone can program new functionality into them. As a result, new statistical methods are often available in S or R years before other packages (with the exception of Stata, see below).
At UT, several classes now use R or S-PLUS and other professors are considering it.
Although the language in R is almost identical the language in S-PLUS, its graphical user interface is not as good but it is free. In addition, given the competition from R, S-PLUS prices are unlikely to increase much in the future. However, we currently provide only minimal consulting support for R or S-PLUS.
You can read more about S-PLUS at:
about R at:
See free statistics books using R or S at:
(under Documentation: Contributed)
Read about R's user interface, R Commander, at:
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Misc/Rcmdr/
3. PLANNING FOR POSSIBLE SPSS CONTRACT CHANGES
SPSS Inc. is NOT changing their pricing for the coming year, but we know from discussions with other universities that the company is sharply increasing pricing for some. We are already unable to extend our existing contract to cover new products, such as Complex Samples, without higher prices. That is why Complex Samples is only available on the Analysis.utk.edu terminal server. The educational price for a single copy of Complex Samples is $499!
To help us plan how to handle a potential price increase, please take a look at the tentative plan below:
A) Remove all SPSS products from the OIT UNIX servers since usage there has all but stopped.
B) Have all products available on the Analysis.utk.edu terminal server. This would allow Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris users access to the more rarely used pieces, although they would need a high speed internet connection.
C) Have the following pieces in a high-volume bundle that we centrally fund if possible: SPSS Base, Advanced Models, Regression Models, Tables, and Exact Tests.
D) Other products would be purchased from the company at their academic rates:
http://www.spss.com/spss/family.cfm?source=homepage&hpzone=tech
If you have other modules that you think should be in the high-volume bundle, please contact Bob Muenchen at BobM@utk.edu or (865) 974-5230.
4. STATA PRICING DETAILS
Stata is a statistics package that has been gaining popularity in recent years. Its popularity stems in part from the fact that it is designed to be extensible. There are many hundreds of extensions available for it in Internet repositories, all free of charge. 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.
5. POST ESTIMATION STATA COMMANDS INSTALLED
We have installed a set of Stata commands to enhance the interpretation of regression models, including multinomial regression, on Analysis.utk.edu. A good example of how they work is at:
http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/dae/mlogit.htm
If you have other Stata commands you would like us to install, please contact Sue Smith at 965-974-1614 or suesmith@utk.edu.
6. SPSS GRAPHICS GUIDE ONLINE
A guide to SPSS' new Graphics Production Language is now available free on the SPSS web site. Login to http://support.spss.com using your userid and password (or Guest for both if you do not have one). Choose Documentation, then SPSS, then SPSS for Windows to find the GPL Reference Guide.
7. SPSS 14.0.2 PATCH FOR WINDOWS
SPSS Inc. has released a patch to bring SPSS for Windows up to release 14.0.2. This is an incremental release, which contains fixes from previous releases. Separate patches are available for SPSS for Windows, SPSS Server, Graduate Pack, and Career Starter. The patch will upgrade any existing version of SPSS 14 to 14.0.2.
For the latest information on problems resolved with this patch and downloading go to: http://support.spss.com and click on "Login to Online Tech Support" then enter your user name and password. If you have not created one, you can use "Guest" for both the user name and password (note the capital G). Select the "SPSS 14 Patches for Windows" then choose the "Interactive Full Version Patch".
8. SAS SERVICE PACK 4 RELEASED
SAS Institute has released Service Pack 4. You can download it by following the instructions at http://support.sas.com .
9. R COMMANDER INSTALLED
We have installed the SPSS-like menu system for R on Analysis.utk.edu. To run it, start R by double-clicking its icon and, at the ">" prompt enter, "library(Rcmdr)". To exit it, simply choose Exit from the File menu. R Commander is described in detail at:
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Misc/Rcmdr/ .
QSR International has release NVIVO 7, which combines the flexibility of NVivo 6 with the large data handing capability of N6/NUD*IST. Unfortunately, the company is pricing it so high that we cannot afford to put it on the Analysis.utk.edu server. It is available from their web site for $495+$99 maintenance:
http://www.qsrinternational.com/products/productoverview/NVivo_7_Pricing_USD.htm
Alternatives include ATLAS.ti on Analysis.utk.edu and QDA Miner, a free download at http://oit.utk.edu/software .
11. 500TH USER ON ANALYSIS.UTK.EDU
The 500th person recently logged in to the OIT Citrix terminal server. During the almost two years of its use, people from 138 departments racked up almost 4,000 hours of elapsed time using its 30 research applications. In a typical month, 130 people log in, running about 700 sessions.
The startup cost was $37K and our ongoing software maintenance is just over $10K/year. If each person used one application there rather than purchase it, it would save UT around $240,000 per year.
12. MPLUS 4.0 INSTALLED
The latest release of Mplus is now available on Analysis.utk.edu. The new features are described at:
http://www.statmodel.com/v4websitelatest.shtml
13. REMOVAL OF TEXTANALYST AND POLYANALYST
The two products from Megaputer Inc. that are installed on Analysis.utk.edu have expired. Due to very low usage, we plan to remove them unless we hear from their former users. PolyAnalyst users can use the similar tools Clementine, Enterprise Miner, Insightful Miner or Weka. TextAnalyst users can use WordStat or Text Miner in its place. If you had planned to use the Megaputer tools, please contact Bob Muenchen at BobM@utk.edu or 965-974-5230.
14. JOINT RESEARCH CONFERENCE IN KNOXVILLE
The 2006 Joint Research
Conference on Statistics in Quality, Industry, and Technology will be in
Knoxville this June. For details see:
http://2006jointresearch.bus.utk.edu/