Project IMPRESS: time-sharing in the social sciences

Assuming that one has access to a large, general-purpose time-sharing system, social scientists would like to have several computational resources. First, large quantities of data should be easily accessible on-line. Second, it should be possible to retrieve and statistically analyze these data without being a skilled programmer. Third, undergraduates should be able to become involved with data analysis, and the involvement should be accomplished with relative simplicity. Finally, faculty should be able to carry out their empirical research---no matter how complex---with equal simplicity.