Kit makes some great points and I think has some solutions that could
work. First, for $180 the department is willing to provide Stata SE
for the students, many of whom work with large datasets, for the
convenience of accessing a larger number of variables than available
in IC. I am in the same situation as the students where I appreciate
the convenience of the larger Stata, but unlike the students I may
have to settle for less. I started the discussion in the Department
last summer as Stata 11 was released but this is still being played
out in different committee meetings over the next months.
Best,
Alan
On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 1:21 PM, Kit Baum <[email protected]> wrote:
> <>
> Alan said
>
> Reasonably enough, I am not eligible for the $180 student lab license
> to use on my office and home computers. However, as a faculty member
> at the University of Maryland I am eligible for a discounted license
> for Stata through their GradPlan. I have used this to purchase my
> past copies of Stata. Currently the cost of a Stata SE license
> through the GradPlan for me is about $425.
>
> The institutional specific glitch I have is that my department is
> unwilling to spend $425 for a license for my use. So, it is not that
> Stata does not provide an educational discount (they do and it is
> large, but that my University is unwilling to pay that amount for me
> to have the same version as the students for teaching purposes. This
> has led to some discussion of alternative, less expensive, statistical
> software applications.
>
>
> We have dealt with this issue at BC (which is a GradPlan site) by providing
> Stata/SE (or /MP) only to faculty members who have a real need for Stata/SE.
> (Do your students really have Stata/SE in their lab? Our PhD students
> don't--they use Stata/IC). Stata/IC is quite adequate for many faculty
> members' needs, and if they need to use a larger dataset, we have Stata/SE
> and Stata/MP available on servers that can be used to create a subset of the
> dataset usable in Stata/IC (as can Stat/Transfer). The Stata/IC faculty
> license is no more than the lab license price you quote. It may well be that
> even that cost per seat is a problem budgetwise, but it's usually easier to
> get someone to part with $1x than with $2.4x. It would be nice if everyone
> could have the snazziest version of Stata on their desk, but many people
> don't really need it to do what they are trying to do (although I still am
> green with envy after hearing a conference presentation where someone stated
> they had Stata/MP for 16 cores handy...)
>
> Kit Baum | Boston College Economics & DIW Berlin |
>
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
