Widely-accepted statistical tool used to measure the precision of estimates

TORONTO, June 2, 2005 -- On Friday, June 3, 2005, the Summer Program in Data Analysis (SPIDA) 2005, an eight-day series of workshops and lectures organized by York University's Institute for Social Research, will wrap up its activities with a unique one-day symposium on bootstrapping.

Far from being a loop of leather on a pair of boots, in modern data analysis bootstrapping refers to a widely applicable statistical tool used to measure the precision of "estimates" made from a sample. Bootstrapping could be very helpful in determining the range of true values when it is found, for example, that in a survey of 1,000 people, 70 per cent of Canadians do not want an election now.

York Prof. Michael Ornstein, Director of the Institute for Social Research, notes, “The value of the bootstrap is that it is applicable to a very wide range of statistical measures and can be used with complex samples, such as samples of housing units selected in a sample of neighbourhoods in a city. Bootstrapping is now part of the modern data analyst's toolbox.”

This one-day public event features a strategic overview of the subject by Prof. Robert Stine, one of North America’s most widely-known researchers in the field, and a panel discussion and presentations dealing with methodological research and examples of bootstrapping led by Canadian experts in statistics, economics and data analysis.

SPIDA is intended for faculty, researchers and graduate and undergraduate students at Canadian universities, researchers in both public and not-for-profit organizations and data librarians. The bootstrapping symposium is expected to attract scores of registrants from a wide variety of Canadian universities. For more information on SPIDA and the bootstrapping symposium, visit the SPIDA 2005 Web site.

WHAT:          Symposium on Bootstrapping

WHEN:          Friday, June 3, 2005

                     9:00 am to 4:00 pm

WHERE:        Schulich School of Business, Robert McEwen Auditorium

                     York University

                     4700 Keele Street

For more information, the media should contact Jeff Ball, Media Relations, York University, 416-736-2100 ext 22086 or jball@yorku.ca