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Statistical Software

Numeric Data Services currently supports the three major statistical software packages, SAS, Stata, and SPSS. Windows versions of each are installed on some computers in the Geographic and Statistical Information Center (G-SIC). We have copies of the user manuals as well as supporting materials for use in the lab. Users are welcome to come to the lab and Users needing assistance with any of these should make an appointment with the Data Librarian.

Syracuse University has site licenses for each of these packages and offers them at a highlydiscounted price for students, faculty and staff. To order your own copy of Stata, go to their order page and be sure to indicate in the comments section that you wish to purchase your copy under SU's site license. To purchase SAS or SPSS, please go to CMS' Software Licenses page and follow the instructions there.

The G-SIC also has ArcView 3.3 and ArcGIS 9.0 available for your use. These can be used with the data management and statistical analysis capabilities of SAS, Stata and SPSS for some truly interesting and cutting-edge projects. We have instructions on Using ArcView and ArcGIS With SAS, Stata and SPSS.

Deciding Which Package to Use

All statistical software packages have their good points and their bad points. Which to use is a difficult but important decision. We describe each package below to help you decide which to use. Please be aware that if you have data in SAS format, for example, but prefer to use Stata (or SPSS), then you are not stuck using SAS. You can use StatTransfer to convert the SAS data into Stata.
  • Stata: Stata is a relatively (compared to SAS and SPSS) easy to learn package which give you a choice among a command-line interface, syntax or program file (called a "do-file" in Stata), and pull-down, fill-in-the-blank GUI interface. Stata is very good with time-series data and has many survival analysis routines. Stata also gives you the ability to program your own commands. One drawback to Stata is that it loads the entire dataset into memory, so if your dataset is very large, you may not be able to use Stata. This is a relatively rare occurance, however. Generally, if you have little or no experience with any statistical package, Stata is probably your best choice.
  • SAS: SAS is the biggest of all statistical packages (as well as being the largest privately-owned software company). SAS can do just about anything you will ever need to do. SAS also has a pretty steep learning curve. There is a fill-in-the-blank interface (SAS/ASSIST) available, but it is not as well-developed as Stata's or SPSS's. To really make the best use of SAS, you must write a program.
  • SPSS: SPSS is another very popular statistical package. It has probably the best GUI interface of the three packages, as well as the ability to write programs. Like SAS, you can probably do everything you will ever need to in SPSS. You can do most of your work in the GUI, but not all, so you may need to learn how to program in SPSS. Like SAS, programming in SPSS has a pretty steep learning curve.
  
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