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.

100% of attendees recommend this course*.
*Attendee feedback from November 2024.

Here is a sample of feedback from the course:

"Excellent examples and knowledgeable lecturers."- Course feedback, November 2024

"The organisation of the course was well done, sessions were prompt, the technology worked well, and the facilitators were friendly and easy to understand."- Course feedback, November 2024

"Handbook is really useful and goes through things in a logical order. The practise and revision exercises in the booklet are very helpful and summarise chapters well, as well as challenging you in some areas. Very friendly environment so you feel at ease to bring up questions or problems. Tutors clearly very knowledgeable and able to give tips and link topics as to when they might be useful in other practice."- Course feedback, November 2024

"The handbook was really helpful and will be a great resource as I do my future work in Stata. Hannah was really helpful to anyone struggling in the chat and explained everything clearly."- Course feedback, November 2024

"The exercises were explained very well and the interactive practical element of the course was very helpful."- Course feedback, November 2024

"I think that having a workbook with examples that correspond to the live course will prove invaluable when I start to work with Stata. I think that the handbook is very well designed and clear."- Course feedback, November 2024

"A very well delivered course - thank you!"- Course feedback, November 2024