Homework #1

Bruce Bayley

Site: Biostats Virtual Library http://www.biostat.washington.edu/Vlib

This site is the Biostatistics page for the University of Washington. The opening paragraph provides a cursory introduction to the topic of biostatistics, as well as the intended purpose of the site. Overall, the site is laid out nicely, with topic categories giving the reader an easy guideline to follow. The active categories included:

1. General Information Sources - this category provides useful links to biostatistical and general statistical information. I found the "Statistics" and "Statlib" links to be the most useful. "Statistics" provides the reader with a comprehensive listing of statistical reference sites, as well as links to a number of public and private educational statistics departments. "Statlib," hosted by Carnegie Mellon University, provides a wealth of statistical data sets, information pages and on-line resources.
2. Related Subjects - provides the reader links to subjects related to biostatistics, such as epidemiology and genetics.
3. Specific Sources Information - the most useful sections of this category was the "Software" section that provided links to a number of the most widely used statistical software packages. These home sites allow the reader to learn about and compare each of the packages. Very informative and useful information.
4. The "Conferences" and "Short and Distance Learning Courses" appeared to be links to only those items that are being offered by the University of Washington.

• Nice introduction to the topic
• Very readable format and topic headings
• The links were extremely useful, providing a multitude of resources
• The site admitted at the bottom of the page that the information had not been updated since April 11, 2000. It also gave the reading a color format that allowed you to recognize pages that had or had not been revised, "White pages have been at least partially revised, gray pages have not."
• The site included both internal and external links (outside of the University of Washington) allowing the reading to have greater access to additional topic information.

• The site was visually boring. The majority of information was in a text format only, providing little stimulation or excitement to the page.
• Less than half of the topic headings had active links to related information. For example, "News, Lists, and Related links" had no links attached to it at all.
• Links to the "Bartlett Corrections page" and the "DVI" and "Postscript" formats of the "STATISTICS RELATED MAILING LISTS" were inactive.