C Oswald George prize announcement 2024

The article entitled “New viruses are inevitable; pandemics are optional—Lessons for and from statistics” by James Nicholson and Jim Ridgway has been awarded the C. Oswald George prize for 2024. This paper brings together extensive and ground-breaking work of leading statistical and data science educators in five countries, that is of vital importance in student learning and promoting civic engagement with explorations of evidence. As data availability and technological capabilities increase, so too do opportunities for rich and authentic student-centred learning. For more than two decades, the authors advocated the importance in student learning and assessment of multivariate real data, visualisation, ICT tools and student investigation of social and sociological issues relevant to their lives. However, as anyone who has accessed publically-available data for education purposes knows, the development of teaching and learning resources, pedagogies and assessment requires high levels of commitment, skills, support and collaboration. The authors' extensive and leading achievements in such development contributed to the setting up of the ProCivicStat project (ISLP — ProCivicStat) with partners in four other countries, funded by the ERASMUS+ program of the European Commission, and motivated in part by the UN's 2015 identification of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's). This project led to further collaboration on a comprehensive treatment of the field of civic statistics, and its pedagogy, with the resulting book in 2022 [4] including explicit attention to Covid-19. The Covid-19 pandemic brought many data and civic statistics issues into the limelight, including the need for curricula to “equip students to use their understandings of statistics outside the classroom”. In the USA, the COVID-inspired Data Science Education through Epidemiology (CIDSEE) project was funded by the National Science Foundation's Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program. It focussed on under-served populations and provided more than 60 Data Detectives Clubs [3] with computer-based data activities and statistical teaching resources in the context of the project's science fiction book on pandemics through the ages. The directors of CIDSEE asked the authors to independently formally evaluate the CIDSEE book, teaching plans and activities, and provide ratings under the Civic Statistics framework of the PCS and [3]. This article brings these evaluations together in an analysis under the Civic Statistics framework and discusses how CIDSEE materials might form a basis for curricular development in the UK. “A well-written and accessible article that addresses the important topic of pandemics and highlights the interdisciplinary nature of statistics.” “As they say in their article, statistical literacy is increasingly important in this age of growing distrust of trustworthy sources (the scientific community, government institutions), and the labelling of truth as ‘alternative facts’ or ‘fake news’ (….. embracing populist politicians who routinely spew falsehoods).” Note: Jim Ridgway passed away on 3rd May, 2024, after a short illness, soon after completing his evaluation and contribution to this paper (see [1, 2]). Dr. C. Oswald George was an eminent government statistician in the UK; one of the founders of the UK's Institute of Statisticians who served as Chairman and President. He donated a sum of money for the ‘best paper, especially submitted by younger authors, in the field of applied statistics’. The prize was subsequently attached to the Institute's own professional exams. After the formation of Teaching Statistics in 1979, the Institute made the prize money available for the best article in Teaching Statistics, and this prize has continued to be made available following the merger of the Institute with the Royal Statistical Society. Dr. C. Oswald George died on 6 January 1974, but we are pleased to be able to honour his legacy each year through the award of this prize to the ‘best’ article in Teaching Statistics.