Workshops

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Online workshop materials

We're currently experimenting with developing online workshop materials. One possibility is a series of very short PowerPoint videos posted to YouTube. Eventually, we'd have a large number of these that students and faculty could use independently, or organize into a complete workshop or course "textbook." At this point, we have two videos, each about 4 minutes in length:

Comments are very much welcome. Please contact Ed Nelson at

or call him at 559/278-2275.

General information

SSDB Workshop, Sacramento State, March 24, 2006

The Social Science Research and Instructional Council offers workshops on a variety of topics, including Social Science Data Bases, SPSS, and Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA). Presenters will come to your campus (at no charge to CSU campuses) and provide hands-on training. Presenters will help participants with downloading the data files. However, presenters are usually not available to consult on specific research questions.

To date, we have developed the following:

  1. Introduction to the Social Sciences Data Bases (ICPSR, Field, Roper, etc.)
  2. Introduction to SPSS (overview of SPSS, recode, compute, select if, frequencies, descriptives, explore)
  3. Intermediate SPSS (review of intro workshop, crosstabs, comparison of means and one-way ANOVA, t-tests, regression and correlation, graphs)
  4. Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) (an online statistical analysis package)
  5. Data in the Classroom

In 2004-05 we presented workshops on the social science data bases at Bakersfield, Monterey Bay, Northridge, Pomona, San Jose, and Stanislaus.

In 2005-06 we presented workshops on the social science data bases at Bakersfield, Fullerton, San Francisco, Sacramento, Chico, Dominguez Hills, Monterey Bay, and San Marcos. We also presented introductory and intermediate SPSS workshops at Bakersfield.

In 2006-2007 we presented workshops on the social science data bases at Humboldt, Long Beach, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Stanislaus, San Bernardino, East Bay, and Los Angeles.

In 2007-2008, we presented workshops at Channel Islands (September 7; SSDB), East Bay (September 26; SDA), San Francisco (October 6; SDA), Dominguez Hills (November 2; SPSS Intermediate), Northridge (November 16; SPSS Intermediate), Fresno (February 19; SSDB), and Stanislaus (March 1. SSDB)

In 2008-2009, we presented SSDB workshops at San Jose (October 2) and Pomona (April 24), intro SPSS workshops at Northridge (October 24), Stanislaus (October 31), Fresno (November 25), Pomona (January 23), Pomona (again, January 30), and Bakersfield (April 17), and intermediate SPSS workshops at Stanislaus (Nov 14), Fresno (December 4), and Pomona (February 13). An SDA workshop was presented at Pomona (May 15).

We kicked off AY 2009-2010 with an August SDA workshop at Fullerton. A brand new workshop, "Data in the Classroom," was presented at Bakersfield on October 16. Workshops on the Social Science Data Bases were held at Fresno on October 30 and at San Bernardino on March 5. At Fresno, an introductory SPSS workshop was held on March 12, followed by an intermediate SPSS workshop on March 15. On May 7, a hybrid workshop (SSDB and Data in the Classroom) was held at Humboldt.

During the 2010-2011 academic year, we held workshops in Fresno on "Teaching with Data" (September 24) and "Data in the Classroom" (November 1). An SSDB workshop was held at Northridge on April 15. On May 6, a morning SSDB workshop was presented at Humboldt, followed in the afternoon by an introductory SPSS workshop.

PowerPoint presentations are available for the SSDB Workshop, the Introductory SPSS Workshop, the
Intermediate SPSS Workshop , the SDA Workshop the Data in the Classroom Workshop and the "hybrid" workshop. We also have lists of URLs used in the SSDB and SDA workshops.

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Suggestions for host campus representatives

SSDB Workshop, Sacramento State, March 24, 2006

Things SSRIC representatives need to do in preparation for workshops:

  1. Working with your campus center for professional development (or it may be called something else such as the center for teaching and learning) to prepare for the workshop. They will often help you recruit faculty for the workshop. They may be able to provide other incentives such as stipends and materials.
  2. Recruiting faculty for the workshop. Graduate students and staff may also attend, but priority ought to be given to faculty.
  3. Developing and distributing a flyer. See attached flyers (in MS Word format) from workshops at
    Bakersfield and
    Stanislaus as possible models.
  4. Arranging for a lunch for participants and presenters where they can talk and socialize right after the workshop. Hopefully your campus will pay for the lunch.
  5. Arranging for a lab for the workshop. The lab ought to have the following software:
    1. Internet browser. Please check to be sure that Internet Options are set for Passive FTP. (See our Field Poll Guide and scroll sown to "Setting Up Your Browser.")
    2. Microsoft Office including PowerPoint
    3. SPSS (let us know which version)
    4. If Windows XP or later is not the operating system, we will need some type of software to unzip files.
  6. Download data files from the archives to the lab that will be used for the workshop to make sure that downloads are working. See download instructions for ICPSR Direct,
    Field Polls at the Berkeley site, and Roper Express. It’s always possible that the lab is not in the IP list we use to authenticate users. That can be fixed, but we need a few days lead time. We will be glad to work with you over the phone on downloading the files. It's also a good idea for participants to bring a flash drive to the wrokshop so that they can take with them any files they've downloaded. This suggestion should be included in the recruitment flyer.

A typical agenda for a workshop often looks like the following. (It can, of course, be modified.)

  • Workshop from 9am to noon with one break
  • Lunch from noon to 1pm
  • One-on-one sessions with participants who want to stay and work with the presenters from 1pm to 2:30pm

If you would like to discuss the possibility of a workshop, or you have any questions, please write Ed Nelson at

, or call him at 559/278-2275.

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Last Modified: August 19, 2011
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