ONE-DAY WORKSHOP: WRITING & USING PYTHON IN SPSS

AUGUST 2008: LONDON, SUNDERLAND, UK

A one day workshop is provisionally planned on using the Python language in conjunction with SPSS to be led by Raynald Levesque. It is to be held in the London School of Economics and Political Science on 12th August, repeated at the same venue on 13th August 2008 and at the University of Sunderland, Tyne & Wear on 20th August. The workshop will be taught in an interactive hand-on workshop-style format,with frequent examples and exercises for participants to work through. A full set of notes and exercise solutions will also be given to all who attend.

Booking forms can be dowloaded in Microsoft Word format or Adobe Acrobat format

Raynald Levesque

The workshop will be led by Raynald Levesque of Montreal, Canada who is a consulting actuary with Aon Consulting.  Raynald's website (http://www.spsstools.net) is full of SPSS syntax, macro, Python and script files which have been helpful to e-mail list users. http://www.spsstools.net/python.htm contains details of the programming language, Python, which may be run synchronously with SPSS syntax from version 14.

Raynald is also the author of SPSS Programming and Data Management published by SPSS. A free pdf file copy of the latest edition of this book, which includes examples of working with Python in SPSS, may be downloaded from http://www.spss.com/spss/data_management_book.htm

The workshops are open to users of SPSS who have a good working knowledge of SPSS syntax and possibly other programming languages.

Booking details

Each workshop will run from approximately 10-00am to 4-45pm. The booking fee includes mid-morning coffee, buffet lunch and afternoon tea each day but not overnight accommodation. Further details will be sent out to delegates upon receipt of booking forms. Please note booking forms need to be received by Tuesday 22nd July 2008.

Session outline

The workshop will  focus on joint use of Python and SPSS rather than strictly concentrate on and teach Python.

• When to use Python, SaxBasic or macros

• Frequently used Python techniques, with SPSS applications

• Python and GGRAPH

• Auto define graph labels

• Create scatter plot with correlation

• Description of various Utilities, for instances

• Finding differences between 2 sav files

• Standardize formats of variables in different data files

• Interesting Modules from SPSS website, with examples of use

• Examples of converting SPSS macros to python  

• Demonstration of useful python modules

• Integrated Development Environment: IDLE or Komodo?

• Best practices

• Python Books / References