M&IS24056: Fundamentals of Business Statistics, FALL 2002

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course is an introduction to concepts in statistical methods and their applications to real-world problems. This course will examine both the theoretical and practical side of the different methods. Students will be given ample opportunities to apply the techniques to different problems. The goal of the course is for students to understand fundamental statistical concepts and methods, and their applications.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Last day to drop a course: 2 November 2002

Prerequisites: Math 11011 (Algebra); Students who have not successfully completed the course prerequisites must withdraw from this class. You risk deregistration otherwise.

Enrollment: It is the student’s responsibility to ensure proper enrollment in classes. You are advised to review your official class schedule during the first two weeks of the semester to ensure proper enrollment. Should you determine an error in your class schedule, you have until 7 September 2002 to correct it with your advising office. If registration errors are not corrected by this date and you continue to attend and participate in classes for which you are not officially enrolled, you are advised now that you will not receive a grade at the conclusion of the semester.

Students With Disabilities: In accordance with University policy, if you have a documented disability and require accommodations to obtain equal access in this course, please contact the instructor at the beginning of the semester or when given an assignment for which an accommodation is required. Students with disabilities must verify their eligibility through the Office of Student Disability Services (SDS) located in room 181 of the Michael Schwartz Student Services Center (Voice/TTD: 672-3391).

CLASS TIME

Class time will be devoted mainly to projects and problem solving. No regular lectures will be given. However, before starting a new topic, the instructor will spend a few minutes summarizing the important points of the topic. After that, the rest of the time period will be devoted to projects and problems that are designed to improve your understanding of the subject matter.

All audio lectures for this class are available on CD (see Textbooks and Course Notes below), or online all the time at your course web site at https://class.kent.edu/SCRIPT/kent012/scripts/serve_home. The lectures make extensive use of audio and animation (see System Requirements). It is assumed that you will have listened to the lectures before coming to class. The value of the class and the ability to ask meaningful questions therefore depends on thorough pre-class preparation. You are encouraged and expected to ask questions.

While attendance is not mandatory, you are encouraged to attend regularly.

Help Instructors: A help instructor will be assigned to this class. This person will conduct additional problem-solving classes, and also help in clarifying the subject matter. Timings will be announced in class.

QUIZZES and EXAMINATIONS

There will be 8 quizzes, and 6 examinations. All quizzes and examinations will be taken online. Most examinations and quizzes will be multiple choice. In some cases, you may get questions that will require you to match the answer to the question, or even a short-answer question. The quizzes and examinations can be found at the course web site at https://class.kent.edu/SCRIPT/kent012/scripts/serve_home, and can be taken from anywhere (home, work, school, BSA computer labs, in the airport, from a hammock sipping Guava juice, etc.) the student has access to the Web. All quizzes and examinations are open-book, open notes, but before taking any quiz or examination, the student will be asked to indicate his/her agreement to an Academic Honesty Statement. This statement will certify that the student agrees to abide by university rules on cheating, and any failure to do so will result in a failing grade. Thus, for example, while you are allowed to use books and notes for the quizzes and examinations, it is cheating if you ask other students to help you while taking the examinations or quizzes. This statement is available online at your course website. Do this first before doing anything else.

Quizzes: There are 8 quizzes for this class. The number of points for each quiz will vary, but the maximum number of points that can be attained from all your quizzes is 100.  The amount of time allotted for each quiz will vary, but will typically be between 15 and 45 minutes. You will have two attempts to take each quiz. The average of the two attempts will be your score for that quiz. If you are happy with your first attempt at a quiz, there is no need to take the second attempt. Results for the quizzes will be known immediately. For each quiz, there will be practice quizzes that you can take any number of times.

Examinations: There will be six examinations. Each examination is worth 50 points. Each exam (including the final) will take approximately 75 minutes. You will have only one attempt to take each examination. Results for the examination will be known only after the examination closes for all students. As this is the first semester in which examinations are given online, I have made electronic versions of old examinations. These can be found as part of your course notes. Practice questions will also be posted online.

Only four of the six examinations will count towards the course grade, for a total of 200 points (4 x 50 points). The four examinations will be chosen as follows:

Dates and Timings: Quiz and Exam dates are posted at your course website, and also given below. Quizzes and examinations can be taken at any time during which they are available. As a warning, please do not wait until the last minute to take your quizzes and examinations. As you must realize in dealing with technology, several things can and will go wrong. The only condition under which I will extend the due dates is if the server goes down on the last available day. Any problems with your computer, will not change the due date. As such, it is your responsibility to ensure that you complete the tasks in a timely fashion. You will get zero (0) points for all missed quizzes and examinations. Please ensure that your examinations and online quizzes have been graded correctly, and notify the instructor immediately of any concerns. The instructor can be easily reached by sending an e-mail from within the web site by clicking on the mail icon, or you can also send an e-mail to mshanker@kent.edu.

Extra Credit: Periodically, you may be given additional homework / quizzes in class or online, each of which will count as extra credit towards your final grade. As missed quizzes / examinations cannot be made up, it is in your best interest to attend class regularly. Please check your electronic calendar regularly for any announcements about quizzes, etc.

Academic dishonesty: Cheating means to misrepresent the source, nature, or other conditions of your academic work (e.g., tests, papers, projects, online quizzes) so as to get undeserved credit. The use of the intellectual property of others without giving them appropriate credit is a serious academic offense. It is the University's policy that cheating or plagiarism result in receiving a failing grade for the work or course. Repeat offenses result in dismissal from the University. Students must indicate their acceptance to this policy before they are allowed to take any quiz or exam.

Other: If for some reason, you are unable to take the examinations online, please let me know. I will then create an equivalent paper copy of the examination for you to take. The format of this examination will be similar to the one online.

GRADES

The grading scale for this course is as follows:

A: 270—300 points, B: 240—269 points, C: 210—239 points, D: 180—210 points, and F: 0—179 points.

The maximum possible points that can be achieved in this course is 300. None of the examinations or online quizzes can be made up, and you will receive a score of zero (0) for any missed examinations or quizzes. Examination and online quiz dates are listed in the following pages. You can also find them on the electronic calendar on your web site at https://class.kent.edu/SCRIPT/kent012/scripts/serve_home. Online quizzes and examinations (except for Exam 6) begin on the Monday of the week they are assigned, and will be available until Sunday 11:50 p.m. (ET) of that week. For example, Quiz 1 can be taken from Monday, 26 August 2002 until Sunday, 1 September 2002, 11:50 p.m.

• CD: Course Materials for Fundamentals of Business Statistics, Murali Shanker (Recommended). This CD is currently available from the instructor, and from the bookstore. This CD contains a copy of the following materials:
  • A copy of all audio lectures for the class. You will need to listen to these before coming to class.
  • A copy of interactive exercises for you to do.
  • A copy of all overhead lectures. These notes follow the audio lectures. Print these out, so that you can look at it as you listen to the lectures. These notes are in .pdf format. A free .pdf reader can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html.
  • A copy of all old exams.
  • A copy of this syllabus, and any supplemental material.
• Interactive Statistics, by Aliaga and Gunderson, Prentice Hall. This book is optional. Note that both the first and second editions of the book are available. I have provided an equivalence chart below. The class notes and lectures are based on the first edition. About 10% of past student have normally bought the book. The book contains a lot more details than the lecture notes. The book Interactive Statistics is available at most bookstores around campus, or from the Web.
• Headphone. The audio lectures make extensive use of audio (see System Requirements below). As such, it is tremendously beneficial to have a pair of headphones to listen to the lectures. If you already have headphones for your audio equipment, they can be easily adapted to fit your computer sound card.

All course materials are optional. Much of the material provided on the CD is available online at your website. But, as the audio lectures and some of the other material are quite bandwidth intensive, unless you have a broadband always-on connection, I recommend you buy the CD. This way, you will have access to all material even if you are not connected to the Internet. In addition, the purchase price of the CD includes a $5 deposit. If you return your legitimately purchased CD in working condition to the instructor at the end of the semester, you will get back your deposit. You are of course welcome to keep the re-writable CD and forfeit your deposit. The book Interactive Statistics contains a lot more details than the lectures (books tend to be that way). Based on comments from past students, about 5% of the students have felt that the book should be required.

How to Access and Use Your Course Web Site

1. Go to http://class.kent.edu
2. Click on myWebCT to log in. If you are unsure how to log in, click on Help.
3. Enter your username and password (see below).
4. Choose Add a Course, and select M&IS: Fundamentals of Business Statistics. The course should be visible under Main.
5. Click on the course to access your Homepage for that course.

Everyone needs a User Name and password to log on to WebCT. They are the same as the ones used for your KSU email account. The User Name and password are case-sensitive in WebCT. That means it make a difference whether you use capital letters or not.

If you already use your KSU email account and know your password you're about ready to go: read the Password Management (http://webcthelp.kent.edu/v3/student/password.html) section of this guide and then go to class.kent.edu to log in (assuming your professor has already given you access to the course).

If you don't know about your KSU email account, read on.

User Name: The first step is to find out your User Name. Go to the Username Request Form (https://secure.kent.edu/userid/), enter your Social Security Number, and your user ID will be displayed. You will use it both for WebCT and for your KSU email account. (If you don't plan on using your KSU email account you should set up automatic forwarding (http://www.personal.kent.edu/forward.html) to another email account.

Password: Your initial password is the first 8 digits of your Social Security Number. For better security you should change it right away to one that only you know. You can do this by going to a special Web page (http://www.personal.kent.edu/changepass.html). When you change your password it may take up to an hour or so before it goes into effect, and there may be a further delay before the password is changed on WebCT. Please read the Password Management (http://webcthelp.kent.edu/v3/student/password.html) section of this guide for more information. When you're ready to log on to WebCT go to class.kent.edu.

If you have problems with your password you can contact the Helpdesk (330-672-HELP or 330-672-2031).