Promoting Effective Methods of Learning and Teaching Statistics and Operational Research

The Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN) Centre in Maths Stats & OR was established on 1 January 2000 and is funded for at least five years. The statistics & OR subjects are the responsibility of the Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education (RSSCSE) at the Nottingham Trent University in conjunction with the Department of Statistics at Glasgow University. The following aims and objectives are based upon the original LTSN bid document made to the UK Higher Education funding authorities but with particular emphasis placed on what we hope to achieve in statistics & OR.

The aims are to:

• Raise the profile of learning and teaching statistics & OR eventually to be on a par with traditional research activities as regarded by panels for the Research Assessment Exercise;
• Establish a UK-wide learning and teaching community in statistics & OR;
• Make a difference in learning and teaching statistics & OR that will benefit students.

The objectives are to:

• Identify champions of good practice in learning and teaching;
• Establish an electronic network of learning and teaching material;
• Create improved methodologies for teaching specialist and non-specialist students in statistics & OR;
• Research the role of information and communications technology (ICT) in learning and teaching (aiming for the best combination of learning material web-based material and generic software);
• Establish a database of who-uses-what including best practice and reports of successes and failures.