MIS 24056 Fall 2012 Shanker

M&IS 24056:Fundamentals of Business Statistics

Fall 2012

Web Sites

• http://oli.cmu.edu. Online course. This contains all the course materials, interactive tutors, and graded assessments called Checkpoints.

• http://learn.kent.edu. Contains audio lectures, and final examination.

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.

Learning Outcomes

1. Examine distributions. Use graphs and numbers to extract information from data

2. Explore relationships between variables using graphical and numerical measures.

3. Sampling. Examine methods of drawing samples from populations

4. Designing Studies. Distinguish between multiple studies, and learn details about each study design.

5. Probability: Concepts and properties

6. Random Variables: Discrete and continuous. Using distributions of random variables to compute probabilities.

7. Sampling distributions of the sample mean and proportion.

8. Estimation: Determine point and interval estimates for the population mean and proportion

9. Hypothesis Testing: Logic and process. Conduct tests for the population mean and proportion. Understand relationship between hypothesis testing and estimation.

Course Requirements

Last day to withdraw from a course:  Sunday, 4 November 2012

Prerequisites: Math 11011 (Algebra).  Students attending the course who do not have the proper prerequisite risk being deregistered from the class.

Enrollment: Students have responsibility to ensure they are properly enrolled in classes.  You are advised to review your official class schedule (using Student Tools on FlashLine) during the first two weeks of the semester to ensure you are properly enrolled in this class and section.  Should you find an error in your class schedule, you have until Sunday, September 9, 2012 to correct the error.  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 for any class in which you are not properly registered.

Students With Disabilities: University policy 3342-3-01.3 requires that students with disabilities be provided reasonable accommodations to ensure their equal access to course content. If you have a documented disability and require accommodations, please contact the instructor at the beginning of the semester to make arrangements for necessary classroom adjustments. Please note, you must first verify your eligibility for these through Student Accessibility Services (contact 330-672-3391 or visit http://www.registrars.kent.edu/disability/  for more information on registration procedures).
Academic Honesty: Cheating means to misrepresent the source, nature, or other conditions of your academic work (e.g., tests, papers, projects, assignments) so as to get undeserved credit.   In addition, it is considered cheating when one cooperates with someone else in any such misrepresentation.  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.

Class Time

There are no class times. This class is completely web based, and students can access the materials anytime during the course offerings. Remember to complete ALL requirements for the course by 14 December 2012.

Course Content and Instruction

This semester, I will be using the course on Statistical Reasoning developed by the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University (http://oli.cmu.edu/). This course is completely self-contained, and was developed to provide a supportive learning environment for independent learners. The course is built around a series of carefully devised learning objectives, and contains several elements, like interactive tutors and videos, that make learning of statistics interesting and relevant. The following sections provide more information about accessing and utilizing the course.

How to access the course

To access our course, do the following:

1. Go to http://oli.cmu.edu/
2. Click on Register (top right corner of the page), and create an account. It is important that when registering, you enter your name, and choose an username identical to your Kent State University Flashline username. For security reasons, please choose a password different from your Flashline password.
3. Once you have created an account, log into the system. Under Register for a course, enter 15641-201280 as the course key. There is a fee of $25, which you will have to pay to get access to the course. That is the only fee associated with the course.
4. Once you have completed payment, you will have access to the course, and all its contents.

Class Materials

Statistical Software: The course uses, by default, Excel as the statistical software. If you are comfortable using Excel for statistical analysis, you may do so. I would recommend instead that you use JMP statistical software. JMP is available for free to all Kent State Students, and can read Excel files. You can even run JMP from within Excel, and my audio lectures all use JMP to illustrate statistical analysis. To get a copy of JMP please go to http://www.kent.edu/is/helpdesk/sas.cfm. Note that University licensing provides this software at no cost to you. Please access the extensive help menu system in JMP to learn how to use it. Also, the multimedia lectures show you how to use JMP for various topics. You will need to use statistical software, either Excel, or other software, throughout the course.

Book. The online course does not use a book. As such, there is no required book. For my audio lectures, I use “Introduction to the Practice of Statistics,” by David Moore and George McCabe, 7th edition as the guide. Versions 6 is equally suitable.  There is no required book, and students have done well in my classes without a book. But, if you do want to get a book, here are some cost-effective options:

1. The latest edition is the 7th, so the 6th edition is available cheaply. http://www.chegg.com/details/introduction-to-the-practice-of-statistics/1429216220/
2. Ultimately, whether you want to buy a book, and which edition you want, is up to you. The book is not required.

Lectures: I have recorded multimedia lectures from classes that I taught during Fall 2011 and Spring 2012. These lectures capture what I did in class, and you will find them under Lesson Plans in Blackboard Learn for your course. To access them, either log into Blackboard Learn from Flashline, or directly at http://learn.kent.edu with your Kent UserID and password. Note that this is different from the website for your online course content. The lectures are arranged by content, and date, and should match the curriculum of your online course. As such, lectures from Spring 2012 are arranged in increasing order, and then lectures from Fall 2011. It is possible that you might have two lectures on the same content. As each semester, I tend to change my lectures, you might benefit from a different explanation.

Online course structure: The online course can be accessed by logging in from http://oli.cmu.edu. Remember to log in with your username and password that you created when registering for the course in the “how to access your course” section. Navigation should be self explanatory, but click on Syllabus, and then start at the beginning, Introduction, which explains the course and how it is set up. Description of a few key features that are supported for independent learning in the course is given below (http://oli.cmu.edu):

• Explanatory content: This is the informational “meat” of every chapter. It consists of short passages of text with information, examples, images and explanations.
• Learn By Doing activities: Learn By Doing activities give you the chance to practice the concept that you are learning, with hints and feedback to guide you if you struggle.
• Did I Get This? activities: Did I Get This? activities are your chance to do a quick "self-check" and assess your own understanding of the material before doing a graded activity.
• Many Students Wonder sidebars: These short passages provide supplementary material that you may find interesting, but that is not necessary to understand the main concepts presented in the course.
• Checkpoints: Taking these short assessments will show your instructor how well you have understood the material.  These assessments are graded, and your final letter grade is based on how well you do on these assessments.

Getting help: While this class is a completely self-contained course, there are several ways of getting help.

• I am available on campus if you need to see me in person.

• I will be happy to conduct classes periodically to clarify your questions. You will have to let me know.

• Contact me via e-mail at mshanker@kent.edu

• Contact me from within the online course. I can observe the performance of the class, and of each student via the instructor tools for the course. At the same time, you will be given opportunities to ask the instructor questions from within the course.

Assessments

Your course (http://oli.cmu.edu) contains 15 Checkpoints. These are short assessments, usually given at the end of each module. Each Checkpoint contains between 6 to 10 questions. You will have one attempt to take each Checkpoint, and will be given 75 minutes to complete them. While Checkpoints can be taken in any order, I recommend that you take them in order as you proceed in the course. Please do all activities required for you to understand the material before taking a Checkpoint. You are required to complete all Checkpoints.

There will one final examination. This examination will be administered in Learn (http://learn.kent.edu), and will consist of approximately 20 questions. You will have one attempt to take this required examination. The format of these questions will be similar to those of the Checkpoint Assessments, and may consist of answering questions that require the use of statistical software (Excel, JMP, etc.). This examination will only be available between 14 November 2012 and 14 December 2012. If you complete all your Checkpoint assessments before 14 November 2012, and would like to take this final examination, please let me know.

All online testing material can be taken from anywhere (home, work, school, BSA computer labs, in the airport, from a hammock sipping Mango juice, etc.) the student has access to the Web. Please test your computer system before starting the course. You can test your system from the course website (http://oli.cmu.edu) after logging in. Click on Test and Configure My System.

All tests are open-book, open notes, but please remember that academic dishonesty will result in a failing grade, and may result in dismissal from the University. As part of the instructor tools, I can observe the progress of each student, and also of the class. As such, it is within my right to ask any student suspected of cheating to establish that the work online is his or her own work. Failure to do so will result in failing grade.

Dates and Timings: All requirements for this class must be completed by 14 December 2012.

Extra Credit: Statistical literacy, reasoning, and thinking are important aspects of this course. By statistical literacy we refer to the basic understanding of the language and tools of statistics. Statistical reasoning refers to the way students understand and make sense of statistical information, and finally, statistical thinking refers to why and how statistical investigations are carried out. By taking this course, I am hoping that your statistical literacy, reasoning, and thinking will improve. To determine this, you will have the opportunity to take two surveys. Details are given below, but please note the following:

• While these surveys are scored, the score does not affect your grade for the course.
• You will be given extra credit for taking the survey. To do so, please put your name on the survey exactly as you have on your Kent account. That way, I can give credit to the right student.
• Each survey takes between 30 and 40 minutes.

Pretest Survey: Please take this survey before you start work on your course. This is a pretest survey, that is, it measures your knowledge before your learn the concepts in this course. To access this survey:

• Go to http://app.gen.umn.edu/artist/user/scale_select.html
• Enter HOF5348POL for Access Code.

This survey is available only between 08-21-2012 and 09-02-2012.

Posttest Survey: Please take this survey after you have completed all assessments. This is a posttest survey. To access this survey:

1. Go to http://app.gen.umn.edu/artist/user/scale_select.html
2. Enter AHY3916IHE for Access Code

This survey is available only between 12-01-2012 and 12-14-2012.

Grades

Your grade will depend on your total score, and the grading scale given below. Your total score is the sum of scores from each of the Checkpoint Assessments, and the Final Exam. The grading scale (as a percentage of the total score) for this class is as follows:

• Scores below 64% results in an “F”.
• None of the assessments can be made up. You will receive a score of zero (0) for any missed assessment.
• Please print and keep a copy of your tests. That will be the proof I will require if there are any disputes about test scores. 
• You will have one week after receiving the score for each assessment to request any corrections.

Please Do The Following Immediately

• Create an account at http://oli.cmu.edu

• Pay and join our course. Course Key is 15641-201280

• Take the pretest survey at http://app.gen.umn.edu/artist/user/scale_select.html, with access code HOF5348POL

Course Schedule

Creating a Student Account

Follow the steps below to register for academic course materials offered by the Open Learning Initiative.

• Go to the Open Learning Initiative (OLI) website:  http://oli.cmu.edu.

In the upper right hand corner of the site, click “Register” and fill out the form.

• On the “Confirm Your Account Information” page, review the account information you entered. If everything is correct, click the "Confirm Account" button. If not, click "Edit Account" to make your changes.

Important Note: the only account setting that can't be changed after you confirm your account is your Account ID.

• Read the statements in the “Online Consent Form” and select “I Agree” or “I Do Not Agree” then select “Submit.”

• Under “My Academic Courses” enter your Course Key and click “Go.”

Your Course Key is 15641-201280

• Review the course details to make sure that you are registering for the correct course, and click “Register.”

• You will reach the “Payment Required” page. Click on the "pay by credit card" button.

• On the Carnegie Mellon credit card payment page enter your billing information and click “Submit.” If your transaction is successful, you will see a receipt page. Save this page for your records.

• Click the return link at the bottom of the receipt page and you will be taken back to your OLI home page.

• Under “My Courses” you will see your registered course. You can double-check to make sure the correct course appears by confirming that the correct Course Key and instructors are listed.