Prof. Apfaltrer (contact information)
To benefit most from this course
You should
- reserve at least 6 hours per week outside the classroom for reading the material and doing the homework.
- do all the homework on time.
- be ready to read approximately 30 pages of the book per week.
- have a BMCC email address and check it at least once per week.
- be familiar with the internet, how to browse and search online, how to scan and how to download software.
- have a personal computer to which you can download software.
- know how to login and navigate blackboard.
- you should download R (free software), we will learn how to use some of its functions in our course.
- you will need *MS Excel* or the free software OpenOffice. We will be using this software as well.
Homework
- Homework assignments are posted in the schedule.
- You will have homework assigned every week, and it will be due on Mondays at 11:59pm of the week that the homework is assigned. See the blackboard assignment tab for due date. No late homework will be accepted!
- Homework will be based on our textbook, sometimes you will need to download some additional files from this site.
- Exercises to be done in R will be indicated with an R next to the homework exercise number in the schedule
- Exercises to be done with a spreadsheet software (OpenOffice/Excel) will be indicated with an S next to the exercise number.
- Exercises to be done by hand, explicitly as the book indicates, are denoted with a T for text. This exercises would have to be scanned and uploaded as PDF documents through BlackBoard's Digital Dropbox. In Blackboard 8, assignments can be uploaded directly in the assignment page.
- Exercises could be denoted by more than one letter, for example by RST, in which case you would have to do the same exercise with R, with a spreadsheet software and by hand!
- If nothing is specified, you are free to do the exercises by hand, or with any computer software.
- If done by hand, then you will need to scan it and save it in PDF format.
- If done with computer software, the only acceptable formats are PDF, ODT, ODS, CSV, DOC, RTF, and TXT.
Mandatory in-person meetings
This class requires 3 in person meetings, one on the first week of class, one to take the mid-term exam and one to take the final exam. Check the schedule to see when this meetings take place:
Spring 2011
* January 31, 2-3:40pm in M1415: Introductory in person class
* March 28, 2-3:40pm in M1415: Midterm Exam
* May 16, 2-3:40pm in M1415: Final Exam
This meetings are mandatory and required to pass the class.
Should you not be able to meet for one of these meetings, you should have a very valid reason. We could then reschedule the meeting to a different time, but the 3 meetings need to take place.
Quizzes
Quizzes will be given bi-weekly. They will be timed and will have to be solved individually. They are to be answered directly and accessed from the
Textbook
The required textbook is
- John E. Freund and Benjamin M. Perles, Statistics, A first Course, Eight Edition, Pearson, Hardcover.
It can be bought at the bookstore or online, for example here.
You will be required to read a chapter per week, and the homework will be based on the book.
Grading
Your grade will be split in the following way:
Homework | 25% |
Midterm Exam | 20% |
Final Exam | 30% |
Quizzes/Participation/Project | 25% |
Participation
- Useful posts on the forum section of this site will be counted as participation
- Useful posts include insightful questions, answers to questions from others, …
- To post on the forum you need to sign up as a member to wikidot.com, which is free.