Improving Statistics Education: Faculty Enhancement Through Collaboration with Industry

传统的统计教育受到批评，因为它没有为统计学家和工程师在工业领域的职业生涯做好充分的准备，而且对工业的需求反应迟钝。在试图解决这一问题时遇到的一个困难是，工业统计学家和学术统计学家之间没有充分的互动。这个教员加强计划为这种互动提供了一个论坛。来自20个学术部门的统计人员和来自工业界和政府的20名统计人员将齐聚一堂，参加为期5天的研讨会，讨论共同关注的问题、合作的机会，以及这两个群体相互学习和相互支持的方式。在讲习班上，每个学术统计学家与一个工业统计学家配对，以便继续合作。在工作坊结束后的9个月里，每位学术统计学家将进行为期3天的实地访问，参与产业统计学家的工作环境，每位产业统计学家将进行为期3天的校园访问。每个工业/学术对也在合作开发基于工业实际实践的案例研究。后续活动包括顶点会议，讨论实地考察、继续合作的计划和案例研究。该项目正在编写和散发案例研究和其他教育材料。案例研究集为统计教育者提供了有趣的、真实的行业问题，这些问题可以纳入统计教学。通过促进工业统计学家和学术统计学家之间的交流和合作，学术统计学家越来越认识到工业的关注和需求，学术部门可以开始解决相关的课程问题。

Traditional statistics education has been criticized for not adequately preparing statisticians and engineers for careers in industry and for being unresponsive to the needs of industry. One difficulty encountered in trying to address this problem is that there has not been sufficient interaction between industrial and academic statisticians. This faculty enhancement project provides a forum for such interaction. Statisticians from twenty academic departments and twenty statisticians from industry and government are coming together for a five-day workshop to discuss common concerns, opportunities for collaboration, and ways in which the two groups might learn from and support each other. At the workshop each academic statistician is being paired with an industrial statistician for continued collaboration. During the nine months following the workshop, each academic statistician is making a three-day site visit to participate in the work environment of the industrial statistician, and each industrial statistician is making a three-day campus visit. Each industrial/academic pair is also collaborating on the development of a case study based on actual practice in industry. Follow-through activities include a capstone meeting to discuss the site visits, plans for continued collaboration, and the case studies. The case studies and other educational materials are being compiled and disseminated by the project. The case study collection provides statistics educators with interesting, real problems from industry that can be incorporated into statistics instruction. By fostering communication and collaboration between industrial and academic statisticians, academic statisticians are becoming more cognizant of the concerns and needs of industry, and academic departments can begin to address the related curricular issues.