301 
Analysis of Sub- 
cent Students in 
se Symmetry 
elation of Intrao- 
achment 
3 an arenavirus 
royo virus) and 
tterns of infec- 
: white-throated 
, in southeastern 
ission Dynamics 
Michigan 
the titles above: 
ms, 
coverage of the 
asize techniques 
spatial autocor- 
;rns, model dis- 
e determination 
tlar disease pat- 
olutions include 
nits for instruc- 
ng the following 
lies of the mate- 
more or less de- 
raterial is anno- 
s; other lecture 
on the web; still 
d to web mate- 
its. 
abs designed to 
leoretical mate- 
■ References, Links, Quizzes 
• Web Games/Applications - web-based ap 
plications of freely available software, 
demonstrating statistical concepts, often in 
cluding relevant demonstration files (such 
as an application of Ripley’s K-function, for 
example). 
• Example analyses - these include “grabber 
s’’ - motivating topics, student projects, ap 
plications of individual statistics, and, as 
mentioned above, example computer de 
mos. 
• Discussion Forums - these are threaded fo 
rums, in which users can pose and answer 
questions that follow a “thread” - a single 
topic, which may branch at any point. 
• Information Frames - succinct, single page 
web-summaries of individual statistics. 
• Statistical Advisor - the advisor aids stu 
dents and researchers in their search for 
that perfect spatial/temporal statistic. 
• Data - we have a certain amount of data 
available free of charge, as well as links to 
other data resources we’ve found useful. 
• Links - an extensive collection of links to 
other courses, data sources, etc. We work 
very hard to keep this current and free of 
dead links. 
• glossaries, links, quotes, and other resources 
- these are used to flesh out the other mate 
rials, for the amusement of our visitors, and 
as thought provokers. 
The cornerstone of our site is the module. Of 
ten a module will focus on a particular statis 
tic or class of statistics (e.g. statistics for de 
tection of a focus of disease, or geostatistical 
techniques), or a particular class of problem 
(e.g. disease surveillance). 
The modules integrate the other materials, 
such as web-based software and games. When 
we first bring up the notion of spatial auto 
correlation in our introductory module, we do 
so in conjunction with a web-based game in 
which the student is presented with a matrix 
of random entries, then asked to either in 
crease or decrease spatial autocorrelation by 
shuffling the entries about the matrix. As they 
play the game, they gain an intuitive under 
standing of spatial autocorrelation. 
In other modules we rely on demonstration 
files passed through software running through 
the web; software such as plotting program 
gnuplot [? ], Splus-clone R [? ], GRASS GIS 
[3], and Dr. Art Getis’s Point Pattern Analy 
sis (all freely available). These are used judi 
ciously to illustrate points appropriate to the 
module. 
Apart from the modules we provide access 
to most of the software used in the module 
labs. This includes some public domain or oth 
erwise freely available software, and demon 
stration versions of commercial software. We 
w r ant to make our presentations accessible to 
as many people as we can, and we feel that 
commercial software obstructs this goal too 
much. 
One important exception to this reliance on 
freely available is our GIS software (ArcView). 
A GIS is essential for the integration of spa 
tial projects, and we feel that ArcView is easy 
enough for the students to use that we have 
adopted it for our course (and integrated it 
into many of the modules). The only public- 
domain GIS we considered in place of Ar 
cView is GRASS, and it is too cumbersome 
for the needs of our students (although we use 
it in various web-based applications). Quite 
frankly, and most regretfully, this lack of Ar 
cView does limit the value of some of the mod 
ules. We are striving to reduce this problem to 
a minimum. 
4 The GeoMed Software 
The GeoMed software is described in some de 
tail on the web site: its capabilities, the statis 
tics treated, etc. It is still in development, and 
has not yet been released (even in alpha ver 
sion); but it will be a part of our course in Jan 
uary, 2000, and begin making its appearance 
on our web site in a demo (or test) version. 
Anyone who has used BioMedware’s Stat! [5] 
knows some of the capabilities of GeoMed (be