EXTERNAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Who are we ?

First, we are not "We", we are "I". AI ACCESS is a one-man operation (Jean SAGAUT), initially dedicated to spreading Neural Networks throughout the industrial community.

Although not a statistician by training, I have over the years acquired some basic knowledge of Statistics and Data Modeling. This was a sometimes disconcerting or even discouraging experience, as courses in Statistics seem to focus on demonstrations and examples, to the detriment of explanations. I can't recall the number of times when, after finally understanding a concept, I thought "Why didn't they explain it first, instead of just demonstrating, and illustrating with examples!" (I am particularly refractory to learning by examples).

The website

So, every time I understood something in Statistics, I wrote down the explanations I would have liked to read (still do), and used these explanations in the courses I'm occasionally asked to give. It appeared that they were indeed filling a need.

I then started formalizing this Glossary as a hobby, and put it on line late 2003. Later on, demonstrations and more advanced material were developed and deported to a (very very low price) paying section, that comprises 166 Tutorials as of today.
 

I also introduced Flash Interactive Animations (49 at this day), that I find particularly effective at getting some ideas through.
 

With no advertizing and virtually no outside links pointing towards it, the site has received 350,000 visits in 2008. If projections mean anything, it will receive over 600,000 visits in 2009, which is an indication that it may be of some interest to some people. I do receive derogatory mails, of course, but also a fair number of encouragements, and I have chosen to remember only those.

The goal

Although there are countless excellent websites (not to mention books) about Statistics, I'm now convinced that there is room for this one too. I want to turn it into a site that people will be pleased to have visited before taking a real training course. I'd be delighted if they thought it made their training easier and more valuable.

From a financial standpoint, the paying part of the site will never make me rich. My only expectation is that it bring a little extra to my (soon to come) retirement plan.

External contributions

To get to this point, the site has to become much bigger and quite a bit more professional than it is today. My early texts were exagerately crude and naive (they are in the process of being rewritten). A lot of even very basic material has not been touched upon yet. So there is a lot of work ahead of me, but I think it's a very exciting and enriching experience.

Also, the site is tragically lacking accounts of real-life applications to illustrate the Glossary.

Days are short, so are years, and I fully realize that I won't be able to do it alone. So I'm looking for outside contributors.

Want to contribute to this site ?

If you think you have both something to contribute and the proper state of mind, please read what follows.