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08: Data collection, development and analysis

Data are only crude information and not knowledge by themselves. Data must first become information; information:facts, and facts: knowledge. Data becomes information when it becomes relevant to your decision problem. Information becomes fact when the data can support it. Fact becomes knowledge when it is useful in forming a human decision. Statistics arose from the need to place knowledge on a systematic evidence base. This required a study of the laws of probability, the development of measures of data properties and relationships, and so on. Wisdom is about knowing how something technical can be best used to meet the needs of the decision-maker, without disguising or misrepresenting the truth.

The Journal of Statistics Education

NBII - Data and Information Products: Systematic Data Collection Methods.

Carnegie Mellon: Data Stories

Princeton University Survey Research Center

The Gallup Organization (Polling)

Social Science Data Collection, UCSD

United States Census

The Library of Congress Country Studies - Some statistical data

STATUSA Internet - US Department of Commerce Information

Statistics.com

Hyperstat Online:An introduction to Statistics

Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics

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