Course Plan

STA2453 is a half-credit course that runs for a full year. The objective is to give you practical training and experience in statistical consulting. We will start with a lecture-assignment-quiz format. This part of the course has two purposes. The first is to familiarize you with a statistical vocabulary that is useful for communicating with clients who have little or no background in Statistics as you know it. The second purpose is to make sure you are able to carry out basic analyses using SAS in a unix environment.

Then, we will have one or more clients come to class. They will present their problems and Jerry will talk with them. Possibly at this point we will be joined by Laurel Duquette, Director of the Statistical Consulting Service. Laurel is the other instructor of this course. More about her role in a moment.

Students will be encouraged to participate in the discussions with clients. Ideally, the clients will also provide data and we will analyze it for them. There also may be some static case studies (no live client and no time pressure). The order of this transitional part of the course will depend on what clients are available and how much in a hurry they are. My preference would be to do at least one static case study before the first client, but if there is a really interesting client who is unwilling to wait, we will do him or her first.

In the last part of the course, small groups of students (2 or 3 at most) will join Laurel or Jerry for meetings with clients. The lecture part of the course will fade away, and we will use classroom time for students' reports on their meetings with clients.

Maybe in the second class, Laurel will come in to meet you, and students will give her their schedules. She will schedule the meetings with clients in the second part of the course. Most of the meetings with clients will be Tuesdays and Thursdays, with a few possibly on Wednesday mornings. If you are not actually attending another class, you are expected to be available for meetings with clients. If your time outside of class is almost all going to be booked in advance, you should not be in this course.

Here are some additional remarks.

• Students will be evaluated based on their performance on the quizzes and assignments in the first part of the course, on their reports on meetings with clients, and also on what they say in meetings with clients.  If you were planning to sit silently and let Laurel or Jerry do all the talking, think again.
• The scheduled classroom time is on Thursday 10-12 in the first term, and Tuesday 10-12 in the second term.
• In the later part of the course, when students are reporting on the meetings with clients, attendance is not optional. We all have to be there if this is going to work.