Alun Owen is currently Head of the Statistics Advisory Service at Coventry University. He has championed the cause of making learning statistics more inclusive and accessible to all students irrespective of their subject specialism, level of ability or other barriers to study they may face. He has achieved this through his pioneering work in the development of statistics support in higher education, which has impacted on students and colleagues alike across the UK and internationally.
After starting his academic career in 1991 teaching statistics at De Montfort University, Alun’s career took a slightly different path in 2008, joining Coventry University and then later Loughborough University, where he led the development of statistics support at both institutions. At that time, statistics support was a new and developing field, and Alun played a key role in its development and subsequent roll out across the UK. Coventry and Loughborough were jointly designated by HEFCE as a Centre for Excellence in university-wide Mathematics and Statistics Support.
This centre, which became known as sigma, was recognised by the Times Higher Award for ‘Outstanding Student Support’ in 2011, and has since evolved into the sigma-Network, which Alun now chairs. As well as chairing the sigma Network Steering Group he coordinates the network’s Special Interest Group in Statistics Support and is an editor of MSOR Connections (https://journals.gre.ac.uk/index.php/msor). Alun initiated and still leads the international virtual statistics learning support centre (www.statstutor.ac.uk), which has facilitated free access to a wide range of statistics learning resources for students across the world.
The site has been accessed millions of times from students globally, with some resources being translated into other languages. He has personally worked with thousands of students on a one-to-one basis, but has also impacted on significantly many more through his work supporting the development of the practice of other colleagues. This includes the development of a wide range of novel training courses in statistics support and sustained contributions to training workshops over many years.