History from 2003

January 2003 to November 2006

The website became operational on 11 January 2003.

The sole activity of the ISLP during this period was the building up and maintenance of the ISLP website. During this time the ISLP website was housed at Winona State University and was maintained by Carol Joyce Blumberg with assistance from three Winona State students: Nichole Machacek (January 2003 to April 2004), Robert Spencer (May 2004 to February 2005), and Tasfia (Tory) Ahmed (February 2005 to June 2006). The server space for the webpages was donated by Winona State University.

The members of the ISLP Advisory Committee during this period were Carol Joyce Blumberg (USA, Chair, 2002 to 2006), Beverley Carlson (USA/Chile, 2002 to 2006), Vicki Crompton (Canada, 2004 to 2006), Paula Fields (USA, 2005 to 2006), Iddo Gal (Israel, 2002 to 2006), Enrico Giovanini (Italy/France, 2005 to 2006), John Harraway (New Zealand, 2002 to 2006), Peter Holmes (UK, 2002 to 2004), Lesley Hooper (New Zealand, 2005 to 2006), Soo Kong (Australia, 2005 to 2006), Olajide Ezekiel Okunola (Nigeria), Maria A. Pannone (Italy, 2002 to 2006), René Padieu (France, 2002 to 2006), Martin Podehl (Canada, 2003 to 2005), Enriqueta Reston (The Philippines, 2005 to 2006), Gilberte Schuyten (Belgium, 2002 to 2006), René Smulders (The Netherlands, 2003 to 2006), and Christopher Wild (2002 to 2006). Ex-Officio members of the Committee were: Carmen Batanero (Spain, IASE President, 2002 to 2003), Daniel Berze (Assistant Director/Director, ISI Permanent Office, 2002 to 2006), Shabani Mehta (Administrative Projects Officer, ISI Permanent Office, 2003 to 2006), Allan Rossman (USA, 2005 to 2006), and Marcel Van den Broecke (Director, ISI Permanent Office, 2002 to 2003).

The major webpages that were active during this period (and their coordinators) dealt with general resources (Carol Joyce Blumberg and Ken Shimabukuro (Bolivia), 2003 to 2006), assessment (Sara Finney, S. Jeanne Horst, and Kenn Barron, (USA), 2004 to 2006), resources at the primary school level (Judith Zawojewski (USA) and Guadalupe Carmona (Mexico/USA), 2003), resources at the secondary school level (Philip Boland (Ireland) and Jerry Moreno (USA), 2003 to 2005), resources for adult learners (Iddo Gal (Israel), 2003 to 2005), teacher training (Mike Perry and Gary Kader (USA), 2003; Eunice Goldberg (USA), 2004 to 2006), useful articles (Eunice Goldberg, 2004 to 2006), resources for the mass media/journalists, training programs/learning materials from national statistical offices (Reija Helenius, Finland, 2003 to 2006), national/international projects (Paola Giacché (Italy), 2004 to 2006 and Carol Joyce Blumberg, 2003 to 2004), children’s censuses (Neville Davies (UK), 2003 to 2006) and datasets (Brant Deppa and Chris Malone (USA), 2003 to 2005).

Formal meetings of the ISLP Advisory Committee and Page Coordinators were held in August 2003 (during the ISI Session in Berlin, Germany), April 2005 (during the ISI Session in Sydney, Australia), and July 2006 (during the International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS) in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil). During these meetings suggestions for additional webpages and other features of the website were decided upon. Other possible directions for the ISLP in the future were discussed. Also, the Advisory Committee and page coordinators were also contacted occasionally as a group by email when decisions needed to be made or advice was desired between the formal meetings.

In 2003 a list of people interested in the ISLP was created. Updates were sent two to three times a year to this list. As of late 2006 there were approximately 200 people on the list. A survey of national statistics offices was designed by Reija Helenius of Statistics Finland. It was translated into Spanish by María Virginia Lopez (Argentina). Responses were received in 2003 and 2004 from 42 offices. These responses were summarized as items on the ISLP by Reija Helenius and Carol Joyce Blumberg and formed the basis for the webpages on training programs/learning materials from national statistics offices and national/international projects.

A search engine and Tables of Contents for individual pages were added in 2004. In 2005 two surveys were added to the website. One survey was for feedback and questions. The other survey was a survey of users and asked for some demographic information and what features the users found most useful and least useful. A search committee was formed in August 2006 to find a new director for the ISLP. The committee consisted of Chris Wild (chair), Iddo Gal, and Carol Joyce Blumberg. Juana Sanchez (USA) was appointed as the new Director in October 2006.

2007

Creation of the Wiki Interface and new site for the ISLP web page

After Juana Sanchez was appointed, Stephen Cope, of the Department of Statistics in Auckland, New Zealand, and the web master of the IASE, Chris Wild, created the wiki interface that you are in now. All of Carol Blumberg’s ISLP web pages were transferred from Winona University to Auckland, New Zealand, where the web site for IASE is. This new interface allows the Director of the ISLP to work on the ISLP web pages very easily, directly from the internet browser. Any other visitor to the pages can also add new materials to the web page. A note to the ISLP director is appreciated, if that is done. Juana Sanchez wrote about her vision for the ISLP in the IASE review published in January 2007. The very general plans that were presented in that document, have been transpiring into several specifica projects during the whole year, projects which we described here.

Activities to Promote the ISLP

The new phase of promotion of the ISLP was initiated by sending flyers and notices to different places where the ISLP was not mentioned yet, presenting information about the ISLP at different meetings in the United States and in Portugal, both in the form of informative booths and formal contributed presentations and closed committee and open meetings. We describe below these activities.

United States Conference on the Teaching of Statistics , which took place in Ohio, Spring 2007. We had a booth/table with promotional materials of the ISLP. See the picture below.

ASA, Salt Lake City (USA) , July 29-August 4. At this meeting, there were several promotional activities. First, we had a table/booth with information on the IASE and the ISI during the 4 days of the conference. A photo of that table is below, with visitors Chris Wild and Bruno Sousa and Juana Sanchez, who managed the table. Second, a big poster with information on the IASE was presented in the ASA Poster session of Tuesday, 31st of July, 10:30-12:20. A photo of this poster, with visitor Larry Weldon in front of it is also shown below.

The Satellite Conference "Assessing Students Learning in Statistics" witnessed also a contributed presentation promoting the ISLP and the ISLP also had a booth during the whole duration of the conference, with a poster summarizing the outcomes of the First International Statistical Literacy Competition. Below you will see pictures of the poster. The paper can be seen by looking at the proceedings of the Satellite conference.

ISI 56 Lisboa, Portugal, August 22-29. Besides the regular advisory committee meeting, we had an ISLP open meeting on Monday, August 27th, 11:45-13:15, with the name ‘Actions to reach the Statistically Illiterate: The role of the ISLP.” Attendance was not very high, partly because many of the people interested in the ISLP were not there, and also because we did not get much of a chance to promote the ISLP through a booth or other forms of personal contact. In this meeting, Statistics Portugal received the First “Best Cooperative Project” award. Bruno Sousa and Maria Manuel da Silva Nascimento and Chris Wild, received the “best Volunteers” awards. The former two, talked about the actions they do in Portugal to reach the statistical illiterate. Pedro Campos, of INE, came to receive the best project award and also to talk about ALEA and the INE’s cooperation with high schools. Irine, from Russia, and Enriqueta from the Phillipines, also shared their experiences with the attendees. The meeting was catered. In addition to the meetings mentioned already, we also had a Promotional Contributed presentation at the ISI meeting, where we advertised the ISLP and passed some flyers.

In Lisbon, there was also a ISLP contributed presentation to promote the project. This presentation can be found by looking at the Proceedings of the ISI-56.

South African Statistical Association 2007. At this meeting, Director Juana Sanchez introduced the First International Statistical Literacy Competition of the ISLP to around 100 teachers attending one of the workshops of the Math4Stats program. The first registrations for the competition came from that conference. This was the beginning of a series of visits to South Africa to cooperate with the ISIBALO program of Statistics South Africa in the preparation of the different phases and the final of the competition, which they would host in 2009.

Pilot Statistical Literacy Literacy Competitions of the ISLP

The Pilot Statistical Literacy Competition of the ISLP was conducted in North Portugal in August 14-18. We have a web page dedicated to this competition exclusively, so we invite the reader to visit it. Preparation for this Competition started very early in the year. Gilberte Schuyten, President of the IASE, facilitated contact with Pedro Pinto, who in turn put us in contact with Pedro Campos of the INE, who sent us a list of schools in Northern Portugal, advertised the competition in the ALEA web page, and adviced and helped us all through the organization. As the date of the competition got closer, we gathered further help from Maria Manuel da Silva Nascimento, of UTAD and Bruno Sousa of U. do Minho. This was the first competition, and we learned many things that helped in the organization of the first International Competitions after the ISI meeting.

2008

First International Statistical Literacy Competition of the ILSP

The very first International Statistical Literacy Competition of the ISLP was launched right after the ISI. It involved a lot of work advertising in numerous newsletters (OECD, Stats Canada, Statistical Society of Canada, ASA, ISI Bulletin, etc) and many web sites. Many people were contacted to start the motion and to help encourage teachers to register their students. In places where local members of IASE took an interest, the enrollment was very high.

Web sites in 6 different languages with instructions and training materials were created. This also required a lot of help from many in the IASE community. A trip to South Africa of the ISLP Director, once more, this time to conduct several promotional workshops organized by the ISIBALO program, resulted in record registrations throughout South Africa. A procedure was set in place based on suggestions from ISIBALO. Registration continued in 2008, with deadline April 30, 2008. To allow maximum participation, countries in the Southern Hemisphere were allowed a longer registration period.

Registrations and Participation in the First Phase

The first phase of the competition was supposed to take place in the classroom of the students, managed by the teachers. Exams translated into several countries were sent by email, the teachers printed them and delivered them to their students, mailing them immediately to the ISLP for grading. Many members of the IASE board of directors, mentioned in the competition web site, as well as three paid translators, sponsored by Juana Sanchez, helped translate the exams and the training materials. Others helped grading the exams in the different languages.

2009

As Director of the ISLP, Juana Sanchez was invited to organize an invited session at the ISI 57 and to present at the topic contributed session organized by Pedro Campos on Statistically significant learning experiences. In addition to that, also as Director of the ISLP, Dr. Sanchez cooperated with ISIBALO of Statistics South Africa in the preparation and execution of the International Statistical Literacy Competition.

ISLP Advisory Committee 2008 to 2009

The purpose of the Advisory Committee of the International Statistical Literacy Project (ISLP) is to help the Director make decisions with respect to the nature of the projects in which the ISLP will become involved. They also provide advice on the scope of these projects and are available for consultation by the Director whenever needed. Some members of the advisory committee play also an executive role by being the representatives of the ISLP in their country and facilitating the work of the ISLP there. ISLP advisory committee members serve for two years and are experts in Statistical Literacy. The members of the Advisory Committee were (in alphabetical order, by country):

María Inés Rodríguez (Argentina), Adriana D’Amelio (Argentina), Paul W. Taylor (Australia), Lisbeth Cordani (Brasil), Larry Weldon (Canada; British Columbia), Francois Nault (Canada), Mary Townsend (Canada), Zhang Zhongliang (China), Reija Helenius (Finland), Jean-Claude Girard (France), Paola Giocche (Italy), Maria Gabriella Ottaviani (Italy), Enrico Giovannini (Italy), Hugo Mael Hernandez Trevethan (Mexico), René H. M. Smulders (Netherlands), Sharlene Forbes (New Zealand), Christopher Wild (New Zealand), John Harraway (New Zealand), Pedro Campos (Portugal), Maria Manuel da Silva Nascimento (Portugal), Vladimir Ulyanov (Russia), Maseka Lesaoana (South Africa), Miranda Mafafo (South Africa), Carmen Batanero (Spain), Ana Serrado Bayes (Spain), José Vicente Novegil Souto (Spain), Beverley Carlson (United Nations), Kate Tranbarger (United States; Boston), Kathryn Lee (Flores)(United States), Cyril Parirenyatwa (Zimbabwe)

Ex-Officio members of the Advisory Committee: Helen Macgillivray (Australia, IASE President), Ada van Krimpen (ISI Director), Shabani Mehta (Administrative Projects Officer, ISI Permanent Office)