Sunday data/statistics link roundup (3/18)

Admin
2012-03-18
  1. A really interesting proposal by Rafa (in Spanish - we’ll get on him to write a translation) for the University of Puerto Rico. The post concerns changing the focus from simply teaching to creating knowledge and the potential benefits to both the university and to Puerto Rico. It also has a really nice summary of the benefits that the university system in the United States has produced. Definitely worth a read. The comments are also interesting, it looks like Rafa’s post is pretty controversial…
  2. An interesting article suggesting that the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster was at least in part due to bad data visualization. Via @DatainColour
  3. The Snyderome is getting a lot of attention in genomics circles. He used as many new technologies as he could to measure a huge amount of molecular information about his body over time. I am really on board with the excitement about measurement technologies, but this poses a huge challenge for statistics and and statistical literacy. If this kind of thing becomes commonplace, the potential for false positives and ghost diagnoses is huge without a really good framework for uncertainty. Via Peter S. 
  4. More news about the Nike API. Now that is how to unveil some data! 
  5. Add the Nike API to the list of potential statistics projects for students.