The new Social Sciences Teaching and Research Statistics (SSTARS) Center,
located in rooms 213C & 213D King Library(South Entrance)
- Brings together the presently scattered support functions
for statistical and other social sciences computing, so that faculty
and graduate students can conveniently utilize the services of
consultants from Computing Services and Statistics as well as access the appropriate documentation -- codebooks, data
descriptions, manuals, etc.
- Provides a powerful, modern, desktop statistical computing
environment, including appropriate peripherals, in which faculty and
graduate students can utilize the various databases and statistical
programs they need in the course of their research.
- Provides remote access to the computing power and the database and
statistical resources for faculty and graduate students to use from their
offices via the campus network.
- Provides a mechanism and a location for acquiring, cataloging,
supporting, and making available to researchers the ever-increasing number
of datasets (both those generated at UK and those acquired from elsewhere)
that are essential for their studies.
- Raises the profile for research at UK in the social sciences and
other non-science disciplines by creating an identifiable center of support
for researchers who employ statistical, textual analysis, and database
processes.
The Center includes workstations networked to a
server with enough storage capacity to handle the large datasets and
statistical programs required for social science research. SSTARS is
staffed by three statistical and database consultants who work for Academic
Computing Services, plus a student lab assistant.
The Center is supported by annual contributions from the Deans of most of
the colleges that are home to the majority of social sciences and related
research, together with generous funds from both Information Services and
Research and Graduate Studies.
SSTARS provides a significant enhancement to computing support at UK. It
is the first center that truly blends support for both research and
instruction in one facility in a manner that is the embodiment of their
symbiotic relationship.
For more information, stop by the Center or call 257-9260