“Hold the front web page!” SSA members now get free access to the online version of Significance Magazine as part of their membership.

The Statistical Society of Australia is partnering with the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) and the American Statistical Association (ASA) to co-produce this magazine, which publishes statistics and data science articles aimed at a general audience. 

For our members, this means that – from June 2021 – you can read each issue of the magazine as soon as it is published (via the Wiley Online Library). There’s also a sizeable discount for those who want a print copy (check the SSA website for more information).

Since 2004, Significance has been a great place to read about topical issues in statistics. In the past year, it has featured articles about the Covid-19 pandemic, the use (and misuse) of statistics in advertising, explainers on synthetic data and measurement error, and a special issue marking the bicentenary of Florence Nightingale. 

With SSA on board as a partner, Significance is looking to expand the reach of its coverage and to feature more news, case studies, opinion pieces and interviews that are of interest and relevance to the Australian statistical community, and beyond. 

To help achieve this aim, SSA is looking to appoint two of its members to join the editorial board of Significance. Editorial board members help shape and steer the content of Significance: they develop article ideas, write articles of their own, identify potential contributors, and review submissions prior to publication. If you are interested in finding out more about this role, and have a passion for making statistics accessible and engaging to all, please contact Adrian Barnett.

The aim of our new partnership with Significance, the RSS and ASA is to promote statistics to a new audience, and to find new contributors with fascinating stories to tell about the power of statistics and data science. So, if you are interested in not only reading the magazine but writing for it too, we encourage you to review the magazine’s aims and scope, its notes for contributors, and to contact Brian Tarran, editor of Significance, to discuss your article idea. (Brian also gave a talk for RSS last year about writing for Significance, which you can find on YouTube.) 

Adrian Barnett
Vice President