Snell

Beginning March 15, the online materials that support the Chance Project will move to a new web site. Laurie Snell has overseen development of these materials at Dartmouth College for nearly two decades, but hopes to ‘really’ retire after celebrating his 85th birthday this year. Jeanne Albert and Bill Peterson of Middlebury College will assume the editorial duties.

The Chance Project began as a teaching course introduced by Snell and Peterson in the early 1990s through funding from the Pew Foundation. The goal was to help students become critical readers of news stories that involve probability and statistical reasoning. With subsequent support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the project team expanded to include Peter Doyle of Dartmouth College, Joan Garfield of the University of Minnesota, Tom Moore of Grinnell College, and Ngambal Shah of Spelman College.

Over the years, project activities have included summer workshops for faculty, a lecture series featuring outside experts, and ongoing development of web materials. Dan Rockmore of Dartmouth and Charles Grinstead of Swarthmore became key collaborators in the last two areas.

The project’s constant has been its electronic newsletter, Chance News, which abstracts current news stories and suggests class discussion questions. From 1992 to 2004, the newsletter was compiled and distributed by the Chance team; however, it moved to a wiki format in 2005, which allows readers to add new articles and edit existing ones.

Upcoming Webinars

For those interested in learning more about the wiki environment, tune in at 2 p.m. Eastern time on April 13, when Jeanne Albert and Bill Peterson discuss the philosophy of the Chance Project and the mechanics of posting online contributions. Click here to register for the webinar.

Other upcoming CAUSE webinars include those in the Teaching & Learning series on the second Tuesday of each month, hosted by Jackie Miller of The Ohio State University, and those in the activity series on the fourth Tuesday of each month, hosted by Leigh Slauson of Capital University.