Statistical software

In this course, you can choose to learn one of two packages: Stata or R.

Stata is an excellent statistics package which is relatively easy to learn, and covers virtually all the methods a researcher in population health would need. You can access Stata remotely via https://www.myaccess.unsw.edu.au/ . Please note that there is a 40-user limit on accessing Stata remotely.

If you are not able to access Stata, or if you find myAccess inconvenient, you can purchase your own license. We use Stata/BE Version 18 for this course. Stata/BE is the Basic Edition of Stata and is more than enough to carry out all the tasks in an introductory level as well as advanced level biostatistics course. You can buy a 6-month license for AUD$82 or a one-year license for AUD$160 from https://www.stata-au.com/ (Note that prices are correct as of December 2023).

R is becoming a popular choice for biostatistics due to its flexibility and its power. Additionally, as R is an open-source project, it is available at no cost. While R has a cost advantage, it does have a reputation of being difficult to learn.

If you choose to use R, we recommend running R via a package called RStudio. Both R and RStudio are available for Windows and Mac (and Linux!) machines, and are available at no cost. Installation instructions will be provided in the course materials.

Summary

I recommend learning Stata if:

• you are happy using point-and-click commands, and
• you don’t want to learn to code.

I recommend learning R if:

• you are interested in learning to code (with lots of helpful instruction!);
• you are interested in data science;
• you are comfortable with file paths, and don’t mind a bit of debugging.

Ultimately, if in doubt, I’d lean towards learning Stata.