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I am a part-time faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, one of four schools in the University of Missouri system. I responded recently to an email sent to all faculty asking for suggestions about eLearning and distance education. Here was my proposal:
Jump start statistics for beginning researchers.
We encourage and sometime require research projects from students, residents, and fellows. But often these individuals do not know how to get started. I am proposing a series of webpages, including video, to help someone get started on data management and data analysis. I have a wealth of information at two websites:
that could be adapted for the beginning researcher. I propose a step-by-step process that would not get someone completely through the research process (such a task would be impossible due to the diversity of research options). Rather, these would be the "first steps" in a research process. These would be short and sweet, with applications using SPSS, a popular and (relatively) easy-to-learn statistical package.
These resources might also be valuable for faculty teaching introductory statistics classes. The webpages and videos would cover some of the basics of getting a data analysis started, allowing the instructor to focus his/her class time on more important issues.
A draft webpage discussing data management issues provides a general idea of what I would like to work on.
Postscript (2009-11-11). I thought about the term "jump start statistics" again, and I like it so much, I might write a book about it. A working title might be "Jump Start Statistics: Steps You Can Take to Restart a Stalled Research Project."