A partnership with the Academic Data Centre will provide students in the English Language Improvement Program with training in data literacy, statistical analysis, and research data management.

Starting this fall, the centre in the Leddy Library will conduct sessions for ELIP level III pathway students, led by Berenica Vejvoda, research data librarian, and Rong Luo, learning specialist and statistical analyst.

“It is always an exciting opportunity to provide data and statistical literacy training to students early on in their academic journeys: before they embark on graduate studies or post-university employment,” says Vejvoda. “We look forward to this series being the first of hopefully many opportunities to provide support for data to University of Windsor ELIP students.”

Anouchka Plumb, manager of language programs for Continuing Education, says ELIP is committed to equipping learners with necessary skills to fulfil their potential in academic study.

“We are thankful to have the ADC team on board in helping pathway students understand and identify data access, conversion, critical evaluation, and more to make informed decisions in their data use and management,” Dr. Plumb says.

The interactive sessions include:

• Secondary Data Discovery and Statistical Literacy, focusing on how to find numeric data sources from major government agencies, including Statistics Canada and other open data portals. An emphasis will be placed on how to critically find and evaluate data sources.
• Statistical Analysis, discussing the importance of statistics in real life and illustrating the powerful features Excel has to offer for statistical analysis.
• Research Data Management, exploring the research data life cycle and providing tips on how to effectively manage research data. Key stages to be addressed include data collection, data processing, data analysis, data sharing and re-use.

The Academic Data Centre provides services to University of Windsor students and faculty across the research data life cycle, says Dr. Luo.

“We are here to support you to find secondary data sources in support of your assignments and research,” she says. “We also assist in teaching data and statistical literacy skills so that the sources you utilize are evaluated effectively and minimize reliance on mis- and dis-information.”

The centre also helps students choose, run, and interpret statistical tests for analysis.