The author
CAST was written by Doug Stirling, a Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Information Sciences and Technology at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand.
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Doug's interests have alternated between computer science and statistics for many years. He originally attended St. Andrews University in Scotland to study computer science, but graduated with a BSc (Hons) in statistics in 1972. After a year's postgraduate diploma in applied statistics in Edinburgh University, Doug returned to St. Andrews University where he earned an MSc in computer science.
Doug's first job was as a research assistant, and later lecturer, in the Department of Computer Science and Statistics at Queen Mary College in the University of London. In 1981, he emigrated to New Zealand and has been on the academic staff at Massey University since then, teaching a wide range of statistics courses.
Doug has done research on various topics, in particular contingency tables, statistical algorithms and the use of software to teach statistical concepts.
Earlier teaching software
After seeing his first Macintosh computer in the mid-1980s, Doug recognised the huge potential of computers with graphical user-interfaces for teaching statistical concepts. In 1987, he published StatLab, a Macintosh program that used simulations to teach several statistical concepts.
StatLab was followed in 1992 by Models'n'Data, another general-purpose program for the Macintosh that taught a wider range of statistical concepts. Models'n'Data allowed students to
CAST packages many of the capabilities of Models'n'Data into a series of simpler modules that are each targetted at teaching a single statistical concept. A simpler user-interface and embedded expository text make CAST much more self-contained than its predecessors.
The author may be contacted by email at d.stirling@massey.ac.nz