The course covers the use of database and spreadsheet tools to organise and query statistical data, programming in an advanced statistical package for file management, data manipulation and cleaning; methods for data screening, cleaning, graphical displays and data analysis using a range of statistical procedures; creation of data analysis reports using modern statistical and graphical methods.

The course is based around Microsoft Access and Excel as well as the SAS statistical analysis system and programming tools. Knowledge and skills developed will be generic and applicable to a range of modern statistical software tools.