Dear list
This has been a very interesting discussion, and I appreciate reading
all the comments. Here are a few thoughts:
1. If your primary purpose for using Bayesian methods is in the
estimation if IRT parameters, there are a number of software packages
that can do this (e.g., MPlus, BILOG, IRTPRO, etc.). There are some
functions in R that allow you to call these programs, run a syntax file,
and obtain the output (e.g., R2mplus). The advantage of MPlus is that it
is multi-processor aware. MPlus also has some Monte Carlo simulation
functions (though not MCMC).
2. mcmcPack which has previously been mentioned is also very fast and
does support some IRT models. However, the models it supports are not
the ones typically used in psychometric analysis.
3. I understand that there is a multi-processor version of OpenBUGS
called MultiBUGS. The only catch with MultiBUGS is that you have to
compile the source code yourself, but if you plan to do a lot of work in
this area it might be worth looking into.
Best
Barth
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