Statistics Micro Workshop Series

Quantitative (numbers) statistical analysis expertise is a sought-after skill by many researchers. The University of Guelph’s McLaughlin Library is fortunate to have a dedicated staff member for quantitative statistics support, who provides one-on-one consultations, workshops, and in-class training on using SPSS and / or RStudio for quantitative statistics. With budget constraints leaving only one staff member to provide quantitative analysis support for over 30,000 students, faculty, and staff at the university…it was time to get creative. Thus, the statistics “micro workshop” series was born.

Come to this presentation to learn about how I re-imagined our quantitative statistics workshop offerings into a micro workshop series. Our workshops used to be live 1-3 hour marathons, leaving attendees burnt out with information overload. The new micro workshops are short, lasting at most 30-60 minutes, and they cover one main topic per workshop to reduce confusion.

Critically, the micro workshops have been recorded and posted to our SPSS LibGuide (https://guides.lib.uoguelph.ca/SPSS), our RStudio LibGuide (https://guides.lib.uoguelph.ca/R), and our YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@UoGLibrary). While available for less than one year so-far, these videos have been watched thousands of times in total. Providing researchers with self-help resources (e.g., step-by-step help including pictures, code, and video) allows them to up-skill independently at point-of-need; this leaves more consultation slots available for folks with specific or complicated requests.