This course will be delivered online over 3 consecutive days, mornings and afternoons.

By the end of the course participants should be able to:

1. find help about a given topic or command;
2. explore a dataset in a number of ways;
3. add labels to a dataset to make it self-documenting;
4. recode variables and derive new variables from existing ones;
5. reorganize and simplify a dataset and deal with missing values;
6. input data from a variety of sources;
7. combine two or more datasets;
8. produce summary statistics, tables and graphs;
9. keep a record of their work and ensure it is reproducible; and
10. deal with dates (optional).

This course is intended for people who are just starting off managing data and conducting simple descriptive statistics in Stata.

This course will cover:

1. getting started with Stata (loading and saving files, finding help, etc.);
2. listing, describing and summarising data;
3. naming and labelling variables;
4. subsetting data;
5. generating and replacing variables;
6. creating tables;
7. importing data from other programs and merging datasets;
8. logs and Do files to document output and code;
9. creating graphs; and
10. working with dates (optional).

The course leads, Dr Hannah Sallis and Dr Beverly Shirkey, have extensive experience using Stata, and use Stata regularly for data processing and analysis as part of their research within Bristol Medical School.

All course tutors will come from Bristol Medical School and be familiar with Stata.

To make sure the course is suitable for you and you will benefit from attending, please ensure you meet the following prerequisites before booking:

Before booking this course, please make sure you read the information provided above about the target audience and prerequisites. It is important that you have access to the relevant IT resources needed for the course and meet the knowledge prerequisites to ensure you can get the most from the course.

Bookings are taken via our online booking system, for which you must register an account. To check if you are eligible for free or discounted courses please see our fees and voucher packs page. All bookings are subject to our terms & conditions, which can be read in full here.

For help and support with booking a course refer to our booking information page, FAQs or feel free to contact us directly. For available payment options please see: How to pay your short course fees.

Participants are granted access to our virtual learning platform (Blackboard) 1 to 2 weeks in advance of the course. This allows time for any pre-course work to be completed and to familiarise with the platform.

To gain the most from the course, we recommend that you attend in full and participate in all interactive components. We endeavour to record all live lecture sessions and upload these to the online learning environment within 24 hours. This allows course participants to review these sessions at leisure and revisit them multiple times. Please note that we do not record breakout sessions.

All course participants retain access to the online learning materials and recordings for 3 months after the course. 

University of Bristol staff and postgraduate students who do not wish to attend the full course may instead register for access to the 'Materials & Recordings' version of this course: Further information and bookings.

89% of attendees recommend this course*.
*Attendee feedback from November 2023.

Here is a sample of feedback from the course:

"I feel the pace of the live lectures were really good and really helpful that the workbook is as detailed as it is. Interacting with course tutors and being able to ask qs has been a real advantage of this format" - Course feedback, November 2023

"Facilitators were experienced and responsive to questions" - Course feedback, November 2022

"Excellent tutors and learning materials. The practical format of the sessions really aided learning" - Course feedback, November 2022

"All the tutors were knowledgeable and sessions were structured and well-run. Doing the exercises as part of each session was really useful" - Course feedback, November 2022