Stata learning resources and training courses

This page provides updates about available learning resources and upcoming Stata training courses in South Africa.

Getting Started

The Introduction to Stata Basics webpage is a comprehensive resource designed to assist new and existing Stata users in mastering the software. It offers structured guidance on various aspects of using Stata, categorised into sections mirroring Stata’s capabilities: data management, graphics, data analysis, and reporting. Each section features worked examples that show command syntax, usage of common options, and interpretation of results, alongside deeper insights to ensure thorough understanding.

Key topics covered include:

• Basics: Starting with Stata, finding help, and using example datasets.
• Importing and Exporting Data: Methods to handle data from Excel, CSV, SPSS, SAS, and websites, including Federal Reserve Economic Data.
• Data Manipulation: Techniques for labelling, customising display formats, rounding data, converting data types, and creating new variables.
• Immediate Commands: Calculators for statistical tests and measures.
• Visualisation: Creating pie charts, bar charts, box plots, histograms, and scatterplots.
• Regression Modelling and Visualisation: Guidance on simple linear regression, using factor-variable notation, and exploring interactions with the `margins` and `marginsplot` commands.

Visit the Introduction to Stata Basics webpage to start learning and enhancing your Stata skills.

Stata learning resources

Learn Stata by enrolling for one of StataCorp's convenient web-based courses or find short courses offered by independent sources in your country.

Available NetCourses

• NetCourse 101: Introduction to Stata
  An introductory 6-week course that teaches how to use Stata interactively.
• NetCourse 120: Statistical Graphics Using Stata
  An introductory 6-week course that teaches Stata's statistical graphics features in the context of data analysis.
• NetCourse 151: Introduction to Stata Programming
  An introductory 6-week course that teaches Stata data-analysis programming to those who have a basic knowledge of using Stata interactively.
• NetCourse 251: Writing Your Own Stata Commands
  An advanced 7-week course that teaches how to add new commands.
• NetCourse 461: Univariate Time Series with Stata
  An introductory 7-week course that teaches the practical aspects of time series that are most needed by practitioners and applied researchers.
• NetCourse 471: Introduction to Panel Data Using Stata
  An introductory 6-week course that teaches the practical and conceptual aspects that are fundamental for practitioners and applied researchers who want to perform rigorous panel-data analysis.
• NetCourse 631: Introduction to Survival Analysis Using Stata
  An introductory 7-week course that teaches concepts such as censoring, truncation, hazard rates, and survivor functions, as well as the analysis of survival data.

For more information please visit the Stata website.

Free, short and convenient webinars to learn about Stata from the experts. Visit the webinar page on Stata’s website to see the available webinars.

Upcoming specialised webinars:

Tips and tricks

19 May 2026, 10:00 a.m. CDT
14 July 2026, 11:00 a.m. CDT

Discover some of Stata's hidden (and not so hidden) gems. In our Tips and tricks webinar, we share a few of our developers' favorite features of Stata with you. We include the following tips:

• Labels three ways
• Standardizing graphs using the Graph Recorder
• So you fit a model, now what?
• Interpreting and understanding your model
• Turn interactive use into reproducible results
• Working with Word

Join us for this one-hour webinar, and learn how you can make your interactions with Stata more efficient and more effective.

Ready. Set. Go Stata.

28 May 2026, 12:00 p.m. CDT
1 July 2026, 1:00 p.m. CDT

New to Stata? Ready to analyze your data but not sure where to start?

If you are asking yourself questions such as

• How do I get data into Stata?
• What tools are available for manipulating and cleaning data?
• How can I create and customize scatterplots, histograms, and other graphs?
• How do I fit a model and graph the results?
• How do I find resources for learning Stata?

then join us for our webinar introducing Stata. In this one-hour webinar, we will take you on a tour of Stata, show you how to answer questions like these, and show you how to go even further. Ask questions in the live offering, or get started now by watching this tutorial yourself.

Introduction to Stata programming

9 June 2026, 11:00 a.m. CDT

Programming in Stata can make your data analysis more efficient, reproducible, and scalable. This session is for researchers ready to move beyond running individual commands—no prior coding background required.

We cover two main areas:

• Writing do-files and creating custom programs to automate repetitive analytical tasks
• An introduction to Mata, Stata's high-performance matrix programming language, and how it extends your analytical capabilities

Análisis Bayesiano en Stata

16 June 2026, 11:00 a.m. CDT

El interés de los investigadores acerca del uso de regresiones bayesianas se ha incrementado de manera significativa en los últimos años. La econometría Bayesiana puede ser aplicada a una amplia y diversa gama de modelos, gracias a un marco teórico unificado para estimar distribuciones posteriores en distintos tipos de modelos.

El webinar cubre aplicaciones prácticas y las herramientas de estimación y post-estimación de Stata, incluyendo:

• Métodos MCMC (Metropolis Hastings y muestreo de Gibbs)
• Estimación por bloques de parámetros
• El prefijo bayes para aprovechar la sintaxis estándar de los comandos de estimación de Stata
• Diagnósticos gráficos de convergencia
• Técnicas avanzadas adicionales

Imparte el webinar Gustavo Sánchez, Principal Econometrician y Director of Technical Services en StataCorp.

Survival analysis with interval-censored data

7 July 2026, 11:00 a.m. CDT

In this free one-hour webinar, we address a common challenge in event-time data modelling: you would like to model the data, but you're unsure exactly when the events occurred. We cover:

• Types of interval-censored data and their characteristics in survival analysis
• Semiparametric Cox proportional-hazards modelling using the stintcox command
• Practical dataset structures, including both single-record and multiple-record-per-subject formats
• Time-varying covariates (TVCs) and their incorporation into models
• Results interpretation and visualisation, including plotting techniques
• Proportional hazards assumption testing for model validation
• Marginal Cox modelling for interval-censored multiple-event data
• Statistical testing for common covariate effects across different event types

The presentation showcases capabilities introduced across recent Stata versions: stintcox (Stata 17), time-varying covariate support (Stata 18), and the new stmgintcox command (Stata 19) for modelling of interval-censored multiple-event data while accounting for potential correlations between event times.

Introduction to survey statistics using Stata

28 July 2026, 11:00 a.m. CDT

This webinar covers fundamental concepts in survey methodology and practical implementation using Stata. We review the concepts of probability and nonprobability sampling and sampling with and without replacement, introduce the finite population correction factor, and examine major sampling designs.

The session focuses on calculating sample weights and demonstrates how to use Stata's svyset command to prepare data for analyses that account for the sampling design.

The webinar is presented by Chuck Huber, Director of Statistical Outreach at StataCorp.

The Stata News User's corner highlights interesting, useful, or just plain fun user contributions. Visit the User’s Corner on the Stata website for complete archive of all contributions.

Stata has a large collection of video tutorials freely available from the official Stata YouTube channel.

Get started with a quick tour of Stata:

Handy reference sheets covering Stata syntax, data processing, programming, etc.

Visit https://www.stata.com/bookstore/stata-cheat-sheets to download.

Upcoming Stata training courses in South Africa

Keep an eye on our website for updates on future training courses as they become available.