12/20/2021
By Shanna Thompson

The Center for Program Evaluation (CPE) will hold Virtual Winter Interdisciplinary Data Analyses Workshops.
All workshops will be held via Zoom on Jan. 12 and 13.
Our workshops are open to both people affiliated and not affiliated with UMass Lowell.
You can register for as many of the workshops as you like. To register for any session, please contact us at cpe@uml.edu.

ALL REGISTRATION FEES ARE NON-REFUNDABLE.
UMass Lowell Faculty/Staff/Students Registration fee: $10/workshop. Register for all 4 workshops and receive a discounted rate of $30 total.
Non-Profit Community Organization Employees Registration fee: $35/workshop. Register for all 4 workshops, and receive a discounted rate of $105 total.
For-Profit Business Organizations Employees Registration fee: $100/workshop. Register for all 4 workshops, and receive a discounted rate of $300 total.

WORKSHOPS

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 12, 2022
Introduction to R: Importing and Working with Data
9 – 11:30 a.m.
Jason Rydberg, Associate Professor

R is currently one of the fastest growing statistical software platforms for use by scientists, researchers, and statisticians. It provides a powerful, open source (i.e., free) environment for a wide array of tasks, including data manipulation, statistical modeling, and statistical graphics. One of the most commonly cited drawbacks in for those beginning to use R is its relatively steep learning curve. In this workshop we will provide an easy introduction to using R for some common research purposes, particularly reading/importing data and data manipulation, cleaning, and variable recoding. We will also take time for Q & A, helping to translate the use of other platforms (i.e., SPSS or Stata) into R.
Level: Beginner

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 12, 2022
Introduction to R: Creating and Customizing Graphics
12:30 – 3:00 p.m.
Jason Rydberg, Associate Professor

R is currently one of the fastest growing statistical software platforms for use by scientists, researchers, and statisticians. It provides a powerful, open source (i.e., free) environment for a wide array of tasks, including data manipulation, statistical modeling, and statistical graphics. Producing visualizations of data and relationships can be an effective means of communicating research findings to a variety of audiences. Yet the graphics produced by commonly used software platforms are often instantly recognizable, but for all the wrong reasons (I'm looking at you, SPSS). One of the particular strengths of R is its capability for producing highly customizable, publication quality graphics. This workshop will provide an introduction to creating and customizing graphics using two of R's graphics systems - the base installation graphics, and "ggplot2" graphics.
Level: Beginner

THURSDAY, JAN. 13, 2022
Educational Data Mining: Introduction to WEKA
10 a.m.– 12:30 p.m.
Tonghui Xu, Graduate Research Assistant

This workshop will provide a hands-on introduction to using WEKA including data mining and data visualization. WEKA is data mining software that contains tools for data preparation, classification, regression, clustering, association rules mining, and visualization. This workshop will review classification decision trees, clustering, and association rules. This workshop is intended for beginners to WEKA.
Level: Beginner

THURSDAY, JAN. 13, 2022
Exploratory Factor Analysis in SPSS
3:30 – 6 p.m.
Hsien Yuan (Mark) Hsu, Assistant Professor

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) has been widely used in social science research to investigate the factors underlying the responses to a set of items. In this workshop, the fundamental knowledge of EFA will be introduced. In addition, through an example, participants will learn the steps of conducting an EFA in SPSS and the interpretation of EFA. Lastly, the Stata syntax and outputs of EFA will be provided for Stata users.
Level: Intermediate

Questions
If you have any questions about the Winter Workshops, feel contact us either by phone 978-934-4641 or email us at cpe@uml.edu.

The mission of the Center for Program Evaluation (CPE) is to conduct research on program evaluation methods as well as to offer evaluation planning, consulting, training and services for the university, regional, and global community. CPE offers program evaluation services that support the University’s missions of research, teaching, and service to the community and industry.