Overview
The September edition of the JMP User Platform focused on education with the goals of (1) identifying user preferences for delivery and scope of learning materials, (2) assessing awareness and use of current resources, and (3) gauging demand for potential learning resources to be implemented in the future.
The poll was sent out to 3,015 people and 230 responses were received resulting in a 76.29% response rate. Of all responses received, 166 were 100% complete. Respondents represented JMP users around the world, but the majority of respondents were from users located in the United States.
Part 1: Learning Resources
This first series of questions referenced the following topics:
- Interpreting Basic Statistical Results: Basic statistics, p-values, hypothesis test results, tables in output
- Quality tools: Statistical Process Control (SPC), Quality Control (QC), Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA)
- DOE: Design of Experiments
- Advanced Topics: Predictive Modeling, Functional Data Explorer, Text Analytics, Complicated Regression
These questions sought to discover how frequently users search for information regarding these topics, the depth of material desired, and maximum time commitment to learn/research each topic. The following screenshots show these distributions.
Part 2: Awareness of Existing Learning Resources
The second series of questions attempted to gauge users’ awareness of existing educational resources both inside and outside of the software. Further, whether users believed these resources to be easily findable and if they had been accessed in the past year were posed.
Participants were also asked, “What are your favorite resource(s) you use often?”. Among some of the top responses included the scripting index, the JMP User Community, and Google.
Part 3: Helpfulness of Various types of Learning Resources
The final series of questions assessed how helpful users perceived seven types of learning resources: Instructor-led training, self-paced e-learning, interactive simulations and built-in tutorials, webinars, one-page guides and short videos, Statistics Knowledge Portal, and examples from the JMP documentation. Distributions for each can be seen below.
Participants were further asked about learning materials they wished JMP would create, topics that may need additional materials/examples, and situations where one style of learning may be preferred over another. Some quotes from users have been highlighted:
“Interactive courses like STIPS in the style of DataCamp or DataQuest with interactive evaluated assignments are really a great way to learn these skills, IMO.”
“I wish there was more content of all types that were specific to Biopharmaceuticals and Biologics and Biopharma manufacturing related topics.”
“… Interactive projects are vital to cement things in my mind: I have to try things myself to remember them.”
It was also important to understand potential disparities in language accessibility for learning resources. Of respondents, 44% reported that English was not their native language. Of non-native English speakers 54.2% said they would want resources to be translated into their local languages. Japanese was the most highly requested language for translation followed by Chinese, French, Korean, and Spanish. Some reported resources that were most important to translate include basic/beginner level materials and analyses-related materials (e.g. regression analysis, multivariate analysis, machine learning). Additionally, 21 users indicated that they would be willing to be contacted further regarding JMP trainers in their local area.
