M&IS 24056:Fundamentals of Business Statistics

Summer 2008

Murali Shanker, A401 BSA

E-mail: mshanker@kent.edu

IM: mis24056
Web: http://www.personal.kent.edu/~mshanker

Phone: +1 330 672-1165

Class Times: online course

Important Web Links

Lecture Slides (in pdf format)
Vista (WebCT)

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 withdraw:  30 June 2008

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

Enrollment: It is the student’s responsibility to ensure proper enrollment in classes. You are advised to review your official class schedule to ensure proper enrollment. Should you determine an error in your class schedule, you have until 12 June 2008 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: University policy 3342-3-18 requires that students with disabilities be provided reasonable accommodations to ensure their equal access to course content. If you have 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 the Student Disability Services (contact 330-672-3391 or visit http://www.kent.edu/sds for more information on registration procedures).

Class Time

There are no regular class times for this course. Lectures for this class are all available online all the time at your Vista course web site. The lectures make extensive use of audio and animation (see System Requirements). Once you log into WebCT/Vista, click on Lectures, and then Chapter 1 to start your course.

Quizzes and Examinations

There will be 9 quizzes, and 5 examinations. All quizzes and examinations will be taken online, and are best taken using a standards-compliant web browser like Mozilla Firefox. Examinations and quizzes will consist of multiple choice, true or false, fill-in-the blanks, matching type, and calculation questions. All online testing material can be found at the course web site on Vista WebCT, and 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. All tests are open-book, open notes, but before taking any test, 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 tests, it is cheating if you ask other students to help you while taking the tests. This statement is available online at your course website. Do this first before doing anything else. A grade of F will be assigned if this is not completed.

Quizzes: There are 9 quizzes for this class. Each quiz is worth 10 points. The amount of time allotted for each quiz may vary, but will typically be around 25 minutes. You will have two attempts to take each quiz. The average result of the two attempts will be your score for that quiz. If you are happy with your first attempt, there is no need to take the second attempt.  Results for the quizzes will be known immediately. Only the best 8 quizzes will be considered for your grade. Thus, the maximum points from quizzes is 80.

Examinations: There will be 5 examinations. Each examination is worth 50 points. Each exam (including the final) will take approximately 75 minutes. All examinations are cumulative. You will have only one attempt to take each examination. Results for the examination will be known immediately. Only the best four exams will be considered for your grade. Thus, the maximum points from exams is 200.

All examinations and quizzes will be available at your website from 9 June 2008 until 12 July 2008. While examinations and quizzes may be taken in any order,  I suggest that you take them in the order given in the Exam and Quiz schedule. Please make sure you complete all requirements by 12 July 2008.

Dates and Timings: Test (quizzes, and examinations)  are available for the duration of the course, and 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 tests. 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 Vista 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 tests. Please ensure that your tests have been graded correctly, and notify the instructor immediately of any concerns.

Academic dishonesty
: Cheating means to misrepresent the source, nature, or other conditions of your academic work (e.g., tests, papers, cases, 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. As soon as you log into your Vista course website, please take the Academic Honesty Statement quiz first. You will not have access to any other quiz or exam until you do so.

Grades

The grading scale for this class is as follows:

Grade
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
Minimum Score Required
257
249
241
230
221
213
202
194
186
168

System Requirements

As this class makes extensive use of audio and animation, make sure that you have access to the following:

Course Structure

The homepage of this course is on your Vista website. All navigation is best done starting at the Homepage. Here are some of the links you will find:

Multimedia Lectures

The multimedia lectures are available as part of the lesson plan. Click on Lectures (in the home page in WebCT/Vista). The Lectures are organized into Chapters, with each Chapter  further broken down by topics. Each topic lasts about 50 minutes.  While everybody's learning style is different, here is my recommended approach:

  1. Download a copy of the lecture overheads either in powerpoint format or pdf format.
  2. Then, start with the first multimedia lecture Chapter 1. 
  3. Start at the beginning for each Chapter, for Chapter 1, that will be Introduction. 
  4. After you are done with the Chapter, test your knowledge with the Practice Quiz for that Chapter/Quiz. A schedule of quizzes and examinations is given here. If you are not comfortable with the subject matter, try additional problems from the Chapter Exercises. You can also do problems from chapter exercises in your book.

Textbooks and Course Notes

Optional: Business Statistics: A Decision-Making Approach, 6th Edition by Groebner, Shannon, Fry and Smith. This book is optional. I am using an older version of the book, and it should be available inexpensively online at places like amazon.com or half.com.

How to Access and Use Your Course Web Site 

  1. To ensure that the content appears correctly on your browser, please use a standards-compliant browser like Mozilla Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/) rather than Internet Explorer.
  2. While I will be using several websites to provide a more engaging learning environment, the central website to access your course is through Vista, the course management software for Kent State University. To log into Vista, do the following:

Course Schedule

The following tables contains the class schedule. 

Chapters

Chapter 1: Data Collection

Chapter 3: Describing Data

Exam 1 Review

Chapter 4: Probability

Chapter 5: Normal Distribution (part of Chapter 4)
Chapter 6: Sampling Distributions
Exam 2 Review
Chapter 7: Estimating Population Values - Population Mean
Chapter 8: Hypothesis Testing
Exam 3 Review
Chapter 13: Linear Regression and Correlation
Final Review

Quizzes and Examinations

Test Chapters 
Quiz 1 1
Quiz 2 3
Exam 1 1, 3
Quiz 3 4
Quiz 4 5
Quiz 5 6
Exam 2 1, 3-6
Quiz 6 7
Quiz 7 8
Exam 3 1, 3-8
Quiz 8 13
Quiz 9 14
Exam 4 1, 3-8, 13-14
Exam 5 1, 3-8, 13-14

Please Do The Following Immediately

  1. Set up your computer to ensure that you can access the multimedia lectures. 
  2. Log into Vista, and answer the quiz on Academic Honesty. You will not be able to take any other quizzes and examinations until you do this. Ensure that you receive 1 point for this.