Biostatistics

• 463 exabytes of data will be created each day globally – that’s the equivalent of 212,765,957 DVDs per day.
• We are a group of academic statisticians from South African universities who have compiled a discussion paper to address these issues.
• We have identified the factors contributing to the capacity crisis in academic statistics, including a lack of collaboration between academics in different academic statistical fields.
• We’ve also proposed a way to improve both the quality and quantity of, primarily, doctoral candidates in the various statistical fields.

What’s in a name?

• Over the years, a divide has emerged between those who research and lecture in applied statistics and their counterparts in mathematical or theoretical statistics.
• Statistics departments are positioned within different faculties across various
  South African universities, for example within commerce, natural science, or engineering.
• A doctoral candidate focused on econometrics may not realise that a biostatistician is well equipped to support and mentor them.

Assessment

• There may be concerns that standardising assessment for what is essentially creative output (novel, innovative ideas) may be too prescriptive.
• However, we believe that a semi-flexible assessment rubric is vital.
• An assessment rubric is an important tool for formative assessment.

Supervisor-student relationship

• The relationship a PhD candidate has with their supervisor is enormously important, as research from across disciplines has shown.
• Without sufficient mentoring, early-career supervisors may not know how to nurture a healthy supervisor-student relationship.
• They may not be aware of all of the intricacies inherent in this relationship, let alone the skills that they should be imparting to their students.

Next steps

• To our knowledge, it is the first of its kind in the field of academic statistics.
• Some new supervisors may use the entire guiding rubric to assist in each important area.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.