Frequently Asked Questions

Most of the items in this section are software issues. If you have an experimental design question or need help to select the appropriate method to analyze your data, please read Design of Experiments and Data Analysis.


Questions
  1. Is documentation available for SAS and SPSS?
  2. Help learning SAS
  3. Help learning SPSS
  4. SAS for Windows availability
  5. Minitab availability
  6. Reading a record in SAS whose length is >252
  7. NEW*** R for Windows or Mac Availability
Answers
  1. Is documentation available for SAS and SPSS?
    The ITaP homepage (http://ics.purdue.edu/helpdocs/General/core.asp) contains a listing of available documentation. Some documents are availble on-line.
  2. Help learning SAS
    SAS for Windows has excellent on-line help that should be useful if you are a mainframe SAS user and are moving to the PC. Sample Programs are available on the Help menu; these programs can be copied and pasted in the Program Editor window and run.
    If your are a beginning SAS user, the on-line tutorial is highly recommended. This consists of a series of short lessons, followed by a quiz. It is easy to print out the instructional material as you go along. The tutorial is available on Instructional Lab machines in the Help menu.
  3. Help learning SPSS
    SPSS for Windows also has excellent on-line help. The sample data sets clearly illustrate each help topic. An SPSS Tutorial is available for beginning users. It consists of a series of short lessons that are explained and illustrated with a sample data set. The tutorial is available in the Help menu.
  4. SAS for Windows availability
    SAS for Windows is available to Purdue students and faculty for use on a personal computer. For more information, please visit ITaP's Contract and Licensing page, or call 494-5100.
  5. Minitab availability
    Minitab is not available through the university. Copies can be purchased at bookstores for around $250.
  6. Reading a record in SAS whose length is >252
    The default record length in SAS is 252. In the data step, use LRECL=n, where n is the length of the record to be read.
  7. R for Windows and Mac
    R is available as a free download from this website:

    (http://cran.r-project.org/)

    The following description of the program is taken from that website.

    R is `GNU S' - A language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. R is similar to the award-winning S system, which was developed at Bell Laboratories by John Chambers et al. It provides a wide variety of statistical and graphical techniques (linear and nonlinear modelling, statistical tests, time series analysis, classification, clustering, ...).