In This Chapter

Connecting with other SPSS users on the Internet

Finding the information you need online

IBM SPSS Statistics users are all over the world. The Internet is a powerful medium through which you can join the SPSS community, and this chapter points you in the right direction.

The Statistics & Consultants Group on LinkedIn

The Statistics & Consultants Group on LinkedIn is one of the largest groups of its kind. At the time of this writing, there are more than 40,000 members. One of your authors, Keith McCormick, is one of the group’s managers. Almost every day, a new discussion is initiated on some aspect of statistics, statistical software, or professional development. Joining the group is completely free and well worth your time. Before you know it, you’ll be not only reading the discussions, but also initiating them and eventually answering other people’s questions.

To join, visit the group’s profile page on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups/Statistics-Analytics-Consultants-Group-1592517/about. Note that the group is private so you need to submit a request to join, but requesting membership is easy — just have a fairly complete LinkedIn profile. There are no special statistical qualifications necessary.

Here are some pointers for getting started with the group:

• Start by reading. You don’t have to post or comment to get a lot of value out of a professional group like this.
• When you’re ready to contribute, be a good group citizen. Try to comment only when you think you can add value. Provide an appropriate amount of context when starting a discussion. Make it interesting, inviting lots of participation. Questions like “How do you do Factor Analysis?” are too vague. Members are there to learn (and teach), and they sincerely want to help.
• If your agenda goes beyond just learning, and you want to hire (or be hired) or promote a product or service, check out the special areas for jobs and promotions. When appropriate, participate in those areas. Be respectful of reasonable boundaries between the different areas by placing promotional content in “promotions” and not in the discussion area.
• Join the SPSS subgroup as well. There is a smaller group dedicated to just SPSS Statistics. There is tons of SPSS activity in the big group, but the subgroup is a cozier setting for discussions specific to SPSS software.

SPSSX-L

SPSSX-L (which you can find at https://listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=SPSSX-L) has been around for years and years. In fact, it predates most of the other resources you’ll find on the Internet. SPSSX-L is a listserv, which is an email-based posting system. You send an email to join, and the posts come back to you in the form of email.

You may find the listserv format surprising if you’re young enough that you’ve always had the Internet. Even if the idea of a listserv is a bit quaint, you don’t want to miss out on the wisdom that’s available through this group. Some of the most knowledgeable and veteran SPSS users out there are active in SPSSX-L, and they sincerely want to help other users.

To ask a question, simply send an email (instructions are given on the home page) and the system will forward your email to all the members. There are instructions on how to cancel if you find that the flow of email is more than you like. You might want to set up an email filter where all the messages from this listserv go to a special folder in your email system, so you can read them when you have the time.

IBM SPSS Statistics Certification

If you’re in a corporate setting or looking to get a corporate job using SPSS, it may help to get certified in SPSS. Having this certification listed on your LinkedIn profile or résumé may help when you’re ready to transition to another role or organization. Currently, you can find details about the IBM SPSS Statistics Level 1 certification exam at www-03.ibm.com/certify/tests/objC2020-011.shtml.

If you’re in a university setting, than this test probably wouldn’t be as useful as taking (and doing well) in a university class that uses SPSS. At the time of this writing, there are five approved Global Training Providers (GTPs) in the IBM training economy:

• Arrow ECS Education
• Avnet Academy
• Global Knowledge
• Ingram Micro Training
• LearnQuest

Online Videos

You can find both free and for-fee videos online. You can find full video case studies from IBM at www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/spss/downloads/demos.html. Check out “Online Demo: Business Analytics Statistics Overview Demonstration” and “Online Demo: IBM SPSS Custom Tables in Action.”

If you want to go the for-fee route, video courses are a great option. Here are some you may want to check out:

• Lynda.com (www.lynda.com): Lynda.com is a popular website for video training. It offers training for all kinds of popular software products, and has a subscription-style pricing structure. They offer one SPSS Statistics course, “SPSS Statistics Essential Training,” which is popular and well done.
• Udemy (www.udemy.com): Udemy offers several SPSS classes for a variety of topics and at varying lengths and prices. “IBM SPSS Statistics: Getting Started” was created by the authors of this book.

Twitter

Twitter might seem like a strange suggestion at first. After all, what can you learn about SPSS in just 140 characters? Of course, the tweet itself won’t help, but what you’ll find on Twitter are thought leaders in the SPSS community and the latest and greatest information on SPSS.

Here are some recommendations on who to follow:

• IBM Training (@IBMTraining): Official news on IBM training including SPSS Training.
• IBM SPSS Software (@IBMSPSS): Official IBM SPSS tweets.
• developerWorks (@developerworks): The latest news on SPSS programming.
• IBM Insight (@IBMInsight): Tweets about the big annual IBM conference in Las Vegas that features a lot of info about SPSS.
• Keith McCormick (@KMcCormickBlog): Keith is one of the authors of this book. Check out some of the folks that Keith follows to get more suggestions.
• Jon Peck (@jkpeck): An employee of SPSS, Inc. (now IBM) for most of SPSS’s history. His tweets are a great way to find out about the latest new programming features.
• Bob Muenchen (@BobMuenchen): Author and speaker who specializes in teaching SPSS users (and SAS users) about R.
• Armand Ruiz (@armand_ruiz): A young IBMer who is an emerging IBM leader in SPSS programming.

Here are some Twitter accounts that are great for data visualization and analytics in general:

• The American Statistical Association (@AmstatNews): The American Statistical Association is the world’s largest community of statisticians.
• SignificanceAp Magazine (@signmagazine): A joint statistics magazine from @RoyalStatSoc and @AmstatNews. Great source for interesting articles both in an out of the magazine.
• Simply Statistics (@simplystats): Simply Statistics blog by Jeff Leek, Roger Peng, and Rafael Irizarry.
• Nathan Yau (@flowingdata): Very influentially author and blogger specializing in Data Visualization.
• Edward Tufte (@EdwardTufte): Famous for his data visualization books and harsh critique of PowerPoint presentations.
• Gregory Piatetsky (@kdnuggets): Gregory I. Piatetsky is a Data Scientist, co-founder of KDD conferences and ACM SIGKDD association for Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, and President of KDnuggets, a leading site on Business Analytics, Data Mining, and Data Science.
• Meta Brown (@metabrown312): Author of Data Mining For Dummies and a thought leader in predictive analytics.
• Hans Rosling (@HansRosling): Brilliant lecturer famous for his TED talks.
• Nancy Duarte (@nancyduarte): Author of Slideology. Owner of a successful company that polishes corporate presentations. She became famous when she helped Al Gore with his slide presentations.
• Dean Abbott (@DeanAbb): Well-known data miner who speaks at the Predictive Analytics World conferences.
• Andrew Ng (@AndrewYNg): Chief Scientist of Baidu; chairman and co-founder of Coursera; Stanford CS faculty.
• Gil Press (@GilPress): Tech journalist. Everything he writes is worth a quick read.

And here are some that are just fun to try:

• The New Yorker (@NewYorker): If you’re going to try Twitter, you can’t go wrong with tweets from the world’s best magazine.
• Maria Popova (@brainpicker): Random thoughts on all kinds of interesting things. More arts and literature than stats, but fun nonetheless.
• TED Talks (@TEDTalks): Tweets from the same folks who bring you those great 18-minute long video talks.

Blogs

Blogs can be a great way to get current advice on SPSS. Books may be updated every time a new version of SPSS is released, but between versions new tips and tricks materialize and that’s where blogs can be a great resource.

Not all blogs are created equal, but here are some we recommend:

• AnalyticsZone (www.analyticszone.com): AnalyticsZone is an IBM blog that has a lot of good current material. They frequently announce new plug-in code that you can borrow to improve the functionality of your copy of SPSS.
• Keith McCormick (www.keithmccormick.com): This is the blog of one of the authors of this book, and although he can’t promise a post every week, he has posted lots of useful advice over the years. Some of it is at an intermediate level that will be useful after you’ve read this book.
• Raynald’s SPSS Tools (www.spsstools.net): This SPSS-related blog that has been popular for decades.

Most blogs have a blog roll (a list of other blogs that particular blogger recommends), so when you start reading one blog you can find others that are similar. Twitter can be a great way to find more blogs, too (see the preceding section). Most bloggers announce their new posts on Twitter.

Online Courses with Live Instruction

There are plenty of instructors out there waiting to teach you a live class. Many of these classes are quite reasonably priced. Both Jesus Salcedo and Keith McCormick (two of your authors) regularly teach online, sometimes to audiences halfway around the world. Jesus’s training schedule can be found at https://learn.quebit.com/category/spss-statistics-courses. You can find out more about Keith’s schedule at (keithmccormick.com/SPSSTraining).

They both teach some theory classes, but they can always be counted on to offer introductory and advanced point-and-click classes as well, focusing on software operations.

There is a whole economy of SPSS software instruction out there. Make sure to find out who’s doing the actual teaching, and don’t be shy about emailing them or chatting with them before you choose a class. You can always email Keith ([email protected]) and Jesus ([email protected]) for advice. They know most members of the SPSS community.

One interesting option for learning SPSS Statistics is a brown-bag lunch format that is offered by The Analysis Factor (www.theanalysisfactor.com). They also offer more extensive seminars on a variety of topics. They cover advanced topics in nonthreatening, shorter formats, too. The training isn’t limited to SPSS Statistics, but SPSS content is common.

A very extensive list of course options is awaiting you at Statistics.com (www.statistics.com). These courses are like university short courses with homework and the whole nine yards. The classes are typically asynchronous so you might see recordings of lectures, but you’ll have access to the instructor during the multiple weeks of the course. A long list of statistics professors and textbook authors are among their ranks. Statistics.com offers serious, in-depth classes, which may be just what you’re looking for. We can’t guarantee that SPSS Statistics will be the software tool of choice, so if that’s important to you, check before you enroll. If the class sounds perfect, but it’s taught using another software tool, don’t rule it out.

Finally, Coursera (www.coursera.org) has become especially popular in recent years. You’re much more likely to find a course about statistics than you are one specifically about SPSS Statistics software operation, but more classes are added all the time, so check it out!

Tutorials

Finding free SPSS content on the Internet isn’t difficult. The challenge is finding good free content. The folks at UCLA have maintained a great website with tutorials for years; you can find it at www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/spss. We highly recommend UCLA’s tutorial.

Here are two more that are worth checking out:

• Amherst College (www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/psychology/resources/SPSS): Amherst’s tutorials include a lesson on APA format.
• London School of Economics (www.lse.ac.uk/methodology/tutorials/SPSS/home.aspx): The tutorials from the London School of Economics make it easy to join in with the examples by providing the practice data for easy download.

SPSS Programming and Data Management: A Guide for SPSS and SAS Users

SPSS Programming and Data Management: A Guide for SPSS and SAS Users, by Raynaud Levesque and SPSS, Inc., is a great book. As of this writing, a new updated version for SPSS Statistics 23 was just released. (The best place for information on python and SPSS is www.ibm.com/developerworks.) Levesque’s book is best for giving you solid intermediate-level instruction. You may find that the SPSS Statistics Syntax chapters in Levesque’s book are advanced, but once you get to an intermediate level in your knowledge of SPSS Statistics Syntax seek out this free book. You can download this book for free at www.spsstools.net/SPSS_Programming/SPSS%20Programming%20and%20Data%20Management%203rd%20Edition.pdf. Or just search the web for the book’s title and you’ll find it.