Welcome to the SSCC!
(For Members in the School of Education)

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Last Revised:1/18/2008

Welcome to the SSCC! The Social Science Computing Cooperative provides computing services for many departments and research agencies in the social sciences. The SSCC provides hardware, software, and computing help tailored specifically to the needs of social science researchers and those who work with them, giving you access to a level of service and support that is unavailable to much of the campus community.

The School of Education has a unique relationship with the SSCC in that the SSCC does not provide primary computing support for members in the School of Education. The School of Education's own technical staff continue to play that role. The SSCC provides additional services, primarily our Winstat terminal servers and consulting on statistical software.

Winstat

Winstat is the SSCC's Windows Terminal Server farm. Windows Terminal Servers allow SSCC members to log in remotely and use a shared version of Windows, with a wide variety of software available. All you need is Internet access and an easily-installed client program. To log in to Winstat, go to its web interface at http://ssc.education.wisc.edu. If you don't have a client installed, the web interface will prompt you to download it. You can then log in using your existing School of Education network account.

Winstat has the usual tools you'd expect on a Windows PC, plus statistical software such as Stata, SAS, SPSS and R. For a complete list, visit our software database on the web. While logged in to Winstat you'll have access to your regular School of Education network drives like S: or N:, the local drives of your own computer, and your default printer. Note however, that while logged into Winstat your home directory will be called the U: drive rather than the H: or P: drive. It's still the same home directory; it just has a different letter.

For more information about Winstat, see the SSCC Publication Using Winstat (For Members in the School of Education).

The SSCC also has Linux servers available which give substantially better performance for computationally intensive tasks. See the SSCC Publication Computing Resources at the SSCC. If you think you might benefit from using the SSCC's Linux servers, contact the consultant.

Consulting on Statistical Software

The SSCC provides consulting on the use of statistical software, primarily Stata, SAS and SPSS (we are investigating the possibility of supporting R, as we understand it is popular in the School of Education). We can answer general statistical questions, but we do not have a statistician on staff. We also cannot write your programs for you. But we will be more than happy to help with planning your project, figuring out the tricks that will make your program work, and of course finding and fixing bugs.

To get help from the SSCC Consultant, you can email consult@ssc.wisc.edu, call us at 2-9917, or stop by 4226 Sewell Social Sciences Building. Staff with expertise in statistical software consult 1:00 to 4:00 each afternoon, but feel free to send in questions at any time and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Note that members from the School of Education should only contact the SSCC consultant for help with statistical software or Linux. For help with other computing problems, including trouble using Winstat, please contact your local technical support person or the School of Education Help Desk at 5-4773. They are closer to you than SSCC staff and know your situation better.

Training and Publications

The SSCC offers a variety of free classes every semester. Topics include Stata, SAS, SPSS and many more. The classes are free, but registration is required. To see the current list and register, visit our training web page.

The SSCC also has a large publication collection, with topics that range from using Winstat to writing programs for statistical software.

When using the SSCC web site, please keep in mind that some of the services referred to, and some of the tools available, only apply to those for whom the SSCC is their primary computing services provider. As a member from the School of Education you may disregard references to separate SSCC email, passwords, etc. because the School of Education remains your primary computing services provider.

Again, welcome to the SSCC. We hope you'll find our services make your research computing more productive.