The Solutions

In outline form our web site solutions include

• Modules - self-contained units for instruction or self-learning, including the following components:
  • Lecture material - the basics of the material discussed in class, in more or less detail. Some of the lecture material is annotated PowerPoint lectures; other lecture materials were developed on the web; still others are being converted to web materials by scanning documents.
  • Lab material - computer labs designed to test the student on the theoretical material presented in lecture.
  • References, Links, Quizzes
• Web Games/Applications - web-based applications of freely available software, demonstrating statistical concepts, often including relevant demonstration files (such as an application of Ripley's K-function, for example).
• Example analyses - these include ``grabbers'' - motivating topics, student projects, applications of individual statistics, and, as mentioned above, example computer demos.
• Discussion Forums - these are threaded forums, in which users can pose and answer questions that follow a ``thread'' - a single topic, which may branch at any point.
• Information Frames - succinct, single page web-summaries of individual statistics.
• Statistical Advisor - the advisor aids students and researchers in their search for that perfect spatial/temporal statistic.
• Data - we have a certain amount of data available free of charge, as well as links to other data resources we've found useful.
• Links - an extensive collection of links to other courses, data sources, etc. We work very hard to keep this current and free of dead links.
• glossaries, links, quotes, and other resources - these are used to flesh out the other materials, for the amusement of our visitors, and as thought provokers.

The cornerstone of our site is the module. Often a module will focus on a particular statistic or class of statistics (e.g. statistics for detection of a focus of disease, or geostatistical techniques), or a particular class of problem (e.g. disease surveillance).

The modules integrate the other materials, such as web-based software and games. When we first bring up the notion of spatial autocorrelation in our introductory module, we do so in conjunction with a web-based game in which the student is presented with a matrix of random entries, then asked to either increase or decrease spatial autocorrelation by shuffling the entries about the matrix. As they play the game, they gain an intuitive understanding of spatial autocorrelation.

In other modules we rely on demonstration files passed through software running through the web; software such as plotting program gnuplot [3], Splus-clone R [4], GRASS GIS [1], and Dr. Art Getis's Point Pattern Analysis (all freely available). These are used judiciously to illustrate points appropriate to the module.

Apart from the modules we provide access to most of the software used in the module labs. This includes some public domain or otherwise freely available software, and demonstration versions of commercial software. We want to make our presentations accessible to as many people as we can, and we feel that commercial software obstructs this goal too much.

One important exception to this reliance on freely available is our GIS software (ArcView). A GIS is essential for the integration of spatial projects, and we feel that ArcView is easy enough for the students to use that we have adopted it for our course (and integrated it into many of the modules). The only public-domain GIS we considered in place of ArcView is GRASS, and it is too cumbersome for the needs of our students (although we use it in various web-based applications). Quite frankly, and most regretfully, this lack of ArcView does limit the value of some of the modules. We are striving to reduce this problem to a minimum.