SPSS
IBM SPSS Statistics (SPSS) is a popular software package used for statistical analysis, charting, reporting, data management, and data documentation. VCU Technology Services has a site license agreement which provides SPSS to VCU matriculated students, faculty, and staff to use for teaching and research purposes at no cost. SPSS for administrative use is also available for a fee.
For information concerning the permitted installation and use of the SPSS products, please read the conditions of license.
SPSS products
The SPSS Statistics package provided by VCU Technology Services can be installed on a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer or used remotely via App2Go. It includes the following products:
IBM SPSS Statistics Base, Advanced Statistics, Amos*, Bootstrapping, Categories, Complex Samples, Conjoint, Custom Tables, Data Preparation, Decision Trees, Direct Marketing, Exact Tests, Forecasting, Missing Values, Neural Networks, Regression
*SPSS Amos is only available via App2Go.
Alternative access
Installing on your personal computer is not necessary. SPSS products are also available for use via the web on the App2Go server, and on all VCU Library workstations and loaner laptops.
License or renew license
IMPORTANT: The SPSS software and licensing codes obtained via this website are restricted to VCU academic teaching/research use only. Any other use, including administrative use, is prohibited. If you need to use SPSS for administrative purposes, please contact the IT Support Center.
To obtain authorization codes to license or re-license SPSS, begin by selecting your operating system:
Terms of license
The SPSS products obtained under the VCU license are subject to all of the following conditions:
- All installations must be registered.
- You may not resell this license and/or the products it covers.
- Installation and licensing is limited to computers owned by:
- VCU or VCUHS
- Currently enrolled VCU students*
- Currently employed faculty or staff members of VCU or VCHHS*
- Users must be currently enrolled VCU students or current VCU and VCUHS employees.
- Usage is limited to VCU related teaching and non-commercial academic research (see below).
- Any other use, including, but not limited to, university administration and operations, is strictly prohibited.
- In particular, the following are prohibited:
- VCU or VCUHS administrative use
- VAMC use
- In particular, the following are prohibited:
*NOTE: If one's VCU enrollment or employment status ends or their ownership of the computer(s) ends, the SPSS products must immediately be uninstalled.
Non-commercial academic research
Non-commercial academic research is research by degree-seeking students and faculty members where (i) the results of such research are not intended primarily for the benefit of a third party; (ii) such results are made available to anyone without restriction on use, copying or further distribution; and (iii) any copy of any such result is furnished for no more than the cost of hosting, reproduction, and shipping.
Administrative use
Although administrative use of SPSS is prohibited, individual administrative licenses may be purchased through the VCU education contract at a discounted price. Please contact the IT Support Center for more information.
Download and install
IMPORTANT: The SPSS software and licensing codes obtained via this website are restricted to VCU academic teaching/research use only. Any other use, including administrative use, is prohibited. If you need to use SPSS for administrative purposes, please contact the IT Support Center.
To obtain the download file for installing SPSS, begin by selecting your operating system:
Terms of license
The SPSS products obtained under the VCU license are subject to all of the following conditions:
- All installations must be registered.
- You may not resell this license and/or the products it covers.
- Installation and licensing is limited to computers owned by:
- VCU or VCUHS
- Currently enrolled VCU students*
- Currently employed faculty or staff members of VCU or VCHHS*
- Users must be currently enrolled VCU students or current VCU and VCUHS employees.
- Usage is limited to VCU related teaching and non-commercial academic research (see below).
- Any other use, including, but not limited to, university administration and operations, is strictly prohibited.
- In particular, the following are prohibited:
- VCU or VCUHS administrative use
- VAMC use
- In particular, the following are prohibited:
*NOTE: If one's VCU enrollment or employment status ends or their ownership of the computer(s) ends, the SPSS products must immediately be uninstalled.
Non-commercial academic research
Non-commercial academic research is research by degree-seeking students and faculty members where (i) the results of such research are not intended primarily for the benefit of a third party; (ii) such results are made available to anyone without restriction on use, copying or further distribution; and (iii) any copy of any such result is furnished for no more than the cost of hosting, reproduction, and shipping.
Administrative use
Although administrative use of SPSS is prohibited, individual administrative licenses may be purchased through the VCU education contract at a discounted price. Please contact the IT Support Center for more information.
Resources
VCU students, faculty and staff are provided access to SPSS learning resources for new and experienced users alike, including video courses, exercise files, and guide books.
Technology Services courses
Online courses
Safari Books Online
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SPSS For Dummies and other SPSS related books may be viewed online for free by VCU students, faculty, and staff, because of VCU Libraries subscription with Safari Books Online.
IBM manuals and documentation
Older manuals
- These two SPSS 21 manuals are listed here because they contain significantly more information than their version 22 and later counterparts, and that information is still accurate for the current version of SPSS.
- This SPSS 10 manual contains an explanation of how to read data into SPSS from fixed-width (column aligned) text files. Although this is an old manual, this explanation is still accurate (except for the two exceptions noted below) for the current version of SPSS, and, to our knowledge, it is not available elsewhere. See pages 4-19 through 4-35 in the manual.
The Basics: SPSS 10 for Windows (exercise files for this manual)
Exceptions:
- Before beginning this procedure for reading text data, which starts on page 4-19 of this SPSS 10 manual, you must change your SPSS character encoding setting to "Locale", as follows:
- Launch SPSS from your start menu (i.e., so that there is no data file open).
- From the SPSS menus, select "Edit / Options".
- In the "Language" tab, and within the "Character Encoding" section, select "Locale's writing system".
(Note: After you finish reading in your text data, as described in this manual, you may want to change this setting back to "Unicode".
- Click OK.
- In this SPSS 10 manual on page 4-20, from the SPSS menus select "File / Import Data / Text Data" --- iinstead of "File / Read Text Data," as stated in the manual.
- Before beginning this procedure for reading text data, which starts on page 4-19 of this SPSS 10 manual, you must change your SPSS character encoding setting to "Locale", as follows:
Technical support
Having difficulty with installing or renewing SPSS? Receiving error messages? The IT Support Center provides technical support for SPSS software applications.
Software updates
IBM releases occasional updates called "fix packs" to improve bugs and other issues with SPSS software. To download and install fix packs, select your operating system:
Statistical consulting services
VCU Statistical Sciences & Operations Research provides free consultation services, including support for research work, statistical advice and analytical know-how. These are available by appointment to all current VCU faculty, staff and students. Find out more.
Email listserv
The SPSS listserv provides notification of upgrades, maintenance fixes, training and learning opportunities and other related news. Users who download SPSS directly from Technology Services are automatically subscribed.
To subscribe/unsubscribe from the SPSS listserv (VCU email address required), select your operating system:
Using R with SPSS
You can run R programs within SPSS to analyze the data files that you have opened in SPSS. R is a free software environment for statistical analysis, graphics, and more.
To be able to run R programs within SPSS, you must perform these one-time procedures:
- First, you must install the correct version of R, which is available at www.r-project.org:
- For SPSS 25, install R 3.3.3
- For SPSS 24, install R 3.2.2
- Then, install the appropriate SPSS auxillary package(s):
- For SPSS 25, install the SPSS Statistics R Configuration Extension and then the SPSS Statistics Integration Plug-in for R, according to these instructions. (You cannot perform these steps if you have not yet installed R 3.3.3.)
- For SPSS 24, install the SPSS Statistics Essentials for R package. Links for downloading this package and for installation instructions are below:
Download for Windows 64-bit (Instructions)
Download for Windows 32-bit (Instructions)
Using R commands:
To use R commands within SPSS, open an SPSS Syntax window (from the SPSS menus, select File / New / Syntax). Then type your R commands, sandwiched between the "BEGIN PROGRAM R." and the "END PROGRAM." commands (note the "." period at the end of those two commands). Here is a simple example:
BEGIN PROGRAM R.
x <- 2 + 5
cat("the value of x is", x)
END PROGRAM.
To then execute those commands, display the "Run" menu in the Syntax window and select "All". The resulting output will normally be displayed in your SPSS Viewer window.
You can execute a subset of the commands in the Syntax window by selecting (highlighting) them with the mouse, displaying the "Run" menu, and selecting "Selection" (or clicking the green triangular "Run Selection" toolbar button). However, you should select and run an entire R "sandwich" (that is, the "BEGIN PROGRAM R." and the "END PROGRAM." commands, and all the R commands in between them).
If desired, you can save the contents of the Syntax window to a file (from the Syntax window menus, select File / Save). Then, in the future, you can re-use those program commands by re-opening that file in a Syntax window (from the menus of any SPSS window, select File / Open / Syntax, then browse for your file).
Your R commands can read and write data from and to an SPSS data file. Here are some related articles of interest: