| Instructor: | Brian Habing, Assistant Professor office: 420G LeConte e-mail: habing@stat.sc.edu office phone: 777-3578 home phone: 739-2686 (9am to 10pm only) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course Website: | http://www.stat.sc.edu/~habing/courses/515F99.html | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Office Hours: | Whenever the door is open, by appointment, and
Monday/Wednesday 3:00 - 4:30 Wednesday/Friday 10:00 - 12:00 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prerequisite: | A grade of C or higher in MATH 111 (Basic College Mathematics - College Algebra) or STAT 201 (Elementary Statistics) or a course equivalent to either | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Credit: | 3 hours (undergraduate or graduate). Should NOT be taken if STAT 509 has or will be taken. Note that the deadline for dropping the course without failing is Thursday, September 30th. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course Description: | Descriptive statistics, elementary probability, the normal and binomial distributions, sampling distribution of estimators, tests of hypotheses, categorical data analysis, correlation, simple and multiple linear regression. The statistical package SAS. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Purpose of Course: | To familiarize students in a variety of fields with modern statistical methods, including the general areas of data description, elementary probability, and inference from data, presenting applications in many areas such as health, social, and physical sciences, education and business. To prepare the students to futher their study in statistical topics such as quality control, design of experiments, nonparametrics, time series, and sampling. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Required Text: | A First Course in Statistics (6th Edition), by J.T.McClave and T. Sincich, Prentice Hall, 1997. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Recommended Text: | SAS System for Elementary Statistical Analysis (2nd Edition), by S.D. Schlotzhauer and R.C. Littell, SAS Institute, 1997. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Computers: | This course will use the software package SAS.
You will have an account on the
PCs in 124 and 303A LeConte. NO PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE
OF SAS IS ASSUMED. SAS is the de facto standard statistical package in a number of industries, and experience with SAS is a prerequisite for many jobs in statistics and in fields which use statistics. While we will only scratch the surface of SAS's capabilities, it should provide a useful introduction into the more standard routines, and a jumping off point for future expericence with it. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Book Examples: | The book contains many example problems and practice exercises (with answers in the back). These will will generally NOT be worked out in class, but the best of these will be listed on the board at the beginning of class. It is your responsibility to go over these. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Homework: |
Homework is due at the beginning of the class period it was
assigned for. Late homework is not accepted. There will be 18 homework assignments, 6 for each of the exams. Only the top 5 scores in each group of 6 will be counted towards the final grade in the class. Each homework assignment will be worth three points, so that the 15 assignments will account for twelve percent of the final grade. Homework will be assigned at least one week in advance in class, and will also be posted on the class website later in the day on which it was assigned. If the homework is on a handout, that handout will be available in class and during office hours. One point will be deducted for violations of each of the following rules:
You MAY work on the homework assignments with other students, but each student must write it up individually. (i.e., No photocopies of other students work.) Any questions about the grading of a problem on the homework must be made by the class period following the one in which it was returned. There will also be a project involving collecting and analyzing a data set using the techniques learned in the course. It will be worth 25 points, and the details will be given out on Tuesday, September 28. It will be due on Tuesday, November 30th. Unlike the regular homework assignments, the project must be typed. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exams and Topics Covered: |
The course is divided into three sections, each section having
six homework assignments and an exam.
The topics covered in the exams will generally follow the chapters
of the text listed below. However,
the exams may also cover material which was solely
presented in class, and that is not contained in the text. The first exam is in class on Thursday, September 23rd. It will focus on the subjects related to chapters 1 through 4 of the text, including: graphical methods, measures of center and variability, basic rules of probability, probability distributions, the binomial random variable and counting rules, the normal distribution, and the central limit theorem. The second exam is in class on Tuesday, November 2nd. It will focus on the material related to chapters 5 through 8 of the text, including estimation and inference for one and two populations. The final exam will be held at 2:00pm on Monday, December 6th. It will focus on the material related to chapters 8 and 9 in the text, including: the least squares regression line, hypothesis testing and prediction, checking assumptions for regression, the correlation coefficient, and chi-squared tests for goodness of fit. Make up exams will be given only in extreme circumstances, and only when accompanied by appropriate documentation. Incidence of cheating and academic dishonesty will be punished to the full extent allowed by university regulations. Any questions concerning a grade recieved on an exam must be raised by the next class period after it was returned. While it will generally not be necessary to "curve" or rescale the grades on the hour exams or the final, this may be done at the instructors discretion by setting 100% to be 100%, the lowest A to be 90.0%, the lowest D to be 60.0%, and 0% to be 0%, and then linearly interpolating to calculate the scores and rounding up to the next half point. In all cases, the rescaled scores shall not be lower than the original scores, and the scaling shall be announced when the graded exams are returned. Any student scoring under 59 on either of the first two exams will be given a chance to raise their score. A five problem, five points per problem, no partial credit, exam will be given the following week. No score will be raised higher than 59. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Grades: | The grade is determined by the scores on the
homework and the three examinations as follows:
with the letter grade determined by the percentage of points obtained out of the maximum possible 370, rounding the percentages up.
There is no "extra credit". | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Complaints and Comments: | While there are end of semester evaluation forms, they come far too late to resolve any difficulties experienced in the class. All complaints should be raised by either speaking with me directly, or by anonymously leaving a message in my mailbox in 216 LeConte. |