Homework 7: (20 Points - due Tuesday 5/23/00, 11:59pm)
Group work (two groups of 3-4 students):
Spend about 10 minutes looking at each of the 5 general statistical software Web sites listed below you have been assigned to. Randomize the order in which you are visiting these Web sites. First evaluate each Web site individually according to the criteria given above, then discuss your findings with your other group members. When evaluating your 5 Web sites, assign points ranging from 10 (perfect) to 1 (poor) and 0 (non-existing) to each of the criteria above. In your group discussion, you should agree on 1 unique score for each category.
Looking at all your individual scores, what is the overall ranking of the 5 Web sites you visited? Provide a 1 to 2 page summary of your findings that contains your joint rankings and comments on the outstanding features (positive or negative) of each of the Web sites you visited.
Group 1: (Roxanne, Weiping, Jingjing, Bruce)
Group 2: (Ann, Qian, Glen, Nancy)
Individual work:
The papers by Kabacoff (1996), Nakano (1998), Eick (1998), and
Minnotte & West (1998) all describe interfaces between the Web
and (specialized) statistical applications. Glance through all
4 papers, then summarize one paper of your choice on
1/2 to 1 page. Note that several of the Web sites referenced in
these papers do not exist any longer. Therefore, indicate whether
your summary is just based on the underlying paper or whether
you have been able to verify some of the facts presented
in the paper.
Homework 9:
Part I: (50 Points - due for in-class presentation on 5/25/00 & 5/26/00)
Group work (3 groups of 2-3 students):
Probably each of you attended an introductory course into some statistical software package such as SAS, S-Plus, or Minitab. Now it is up to you to introduce a Web-based statistical software package to everyone else in class.
You can select among:
Starting with the existing on-line documentation (and the handouts provided
in class), you have to understand the basics of your software package first.
See how data can be read in (which data format is required, which delimiters
are used, how to encode categorical data or missing values?).
You may want to use this sample data from
http://www.math.usu.edu/~vukasino/teaching/spring2000/complab/student_data1.prn
and
http://www.math.usu.edu/~vukasino/teaching/spring2000/complab/student_data2.prn
as a starting point. This data
contains information on quantitative and categorical measures
of students in 2 different sections of Stat 3000 in Spring 2000.
If you think other data is more suitable or if you need additional data,
you may select additional data sets from any source on the Web that
seem to be suitable to further demonstrate the use of your package.
You should prepare a 45 to 50 minutes introduction into your package. Topics to be discussed in this time are:
Have your students do some exercises in class. Provide enough time for these exercises, check with your students, and provide individual help when needed. Prepare one homework question!
It is not required to go deep into your package. The main goal
of such introductory lectures is that everybody understands the basics
of the package you are presenting and how to continue learning more
about this package. Providing some handouts (printed or on-line)
that summarize important URLs or basic steps that might be helpful
for your students. The outline I once prepared for an
S/S-Plus short course might be of some help:
http://www.math.usu.edu/~symanzik/teaching/1997_scourse/sintro
Part II: (10 Points - due on 5/30/00)
Individual work:
Once again, you have to evaluate the presentations of your fellow
students. Did you understand how to use each of the Web-based
packages that has been presented? What was good, what was bad in
each presentation? Did you have enough time to work with each
of these packages during class or were the presenters too fast
rushing through the material? Was too much or too little material
presented during these 45 to 50 minutes? Have you been able
to solve the homework question quickly based on the material
presented in class or did you have to spend a lot of time
reading through the on-line documentation first before answering
the question?
Part III: (10 Points - due on 5/30/00)
Note that Part III of this homework has been reposted
(with additional details) as Homework 10.
Individual work:
Provide a "master solution" for the homework question related to the package you have presented (exactly indicate the steps one has to do to obtain the solution) and solve the homework questions for each of the other packages that have been presented in class.