Students enrolled in this unit are required to participate a 1-hour tutorial class per week from Week 2, complete independently three assignments and submit each of them by its due date specified in the assignment, and sit a three-hour written examination during the University examination period for the semester.

No extension will be granted for any assessment task without an application for Disruption to Studies being submitted and approved.

Classes

Students are required to attend a 3-hour lecture per week beginning in Week 1, and a 1-hour laboratory tutorial class in computer laboratory beginning in Week 2.

Times and locations for all classes can be found on the University web site at: www.timetables.mq.edu.au. In the case of changing classes, time and/or location, you will be informed at the lecture and/or on the unit iLearn in advance.

Note: You are welcome to come to see the lecturer during staff consultation time with questions related to the unit. You could also contact the lecturer by email or telephone. Only the Macquarie University student email accounts may be used to communicate with staff.

Course materials and recommended reading

Weekly lecture notes will be made available on the unit iLearn at https://iLearn.mq.edu.au/ at least one day before the lecture. Students may print out and bring the relevant lecture notes into the lecture.

There is no compulsory textbook for this unit. Students may find the following book by McNeil (1996) a useful supplement to the lecture notes. Other useful references are also provided below.

Recommended reading:

Epidemiological research methods, by D. McNeil, Wiley, 1996.

Other useful references:

Epidemiology in Medicine, by H. Hennekens & J. E. Burning, Little Brown, 1987. Statistics in 

Epidemiology, by H. Sahai & A. Khurshid, CRC Press, 1996. Statistical Methods in Medical Research, 3rd Edition, by P. Armitage & G. Berry, Blackwell, 1994.

Epidemiologic Research: Principles and Quantitative Methods, by D. G. Kleinbaum et al, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982.

An introduction to categorical data analysis, by A. Agresti, Wiley, 1996.

Logistic regression: a self-learning text, by D. G. Kleinbaum, Spring-Verlag, 1992. Applied 

Logistic Regression, D. Hosmer & S. Lemeshow, John Wiley & Sons, 1989.

Survival Analysis: A Self-Learning Text, by D. G. Kleinbaum, Springer, 1996.

Modelling survival data in medical research, by D. Collett, Chapman & Hall, 1994. Analysis of Survival Data, by D. R. Cox & D. Oakes, Chapman & Hall, 1984.

Technology Used and Required

Software: SAS is used in this unit. SAS 9.4 is available via iLab (https://wiki.mq.edu.au/display/iLab/Applications+on+iLab) in all E4B computing labs on campus and outside the University. Remember that any work or results produced via iLab in those labs must be saved to the iLab desktop and then emailed to yourself. For information about iLab, visit https://wiki.mq.edu.au/display/iLab/About. You may also download SAS University Edition (see details at https://www.sas.com/en_us/software/university-edition/download-software.html) for home use, known as SAS studio. It is free for downloading at http://www.sas.com/en_za/software/university-edition.html where you can also find information about this free software.

Calculator: An electronic calculator is required throughout this unit. Only calculators with no text retrieval capacity are permitted to be used in the examination.

Unit Web Page and iLearn Access: The unit web page is available on iLearn and can be accessed at http://ilearn.mq.edu.au, under ’STAT395 Biostatistics and Epidemiology/STAT818_STAT718 Epidemiological Methods’ link. Note that you should visit this web site regularly for course materials including lecture slides, lecture recordings, tutorials and assignments, and also possible announcements placed by the Lecturer.

The Discussion Forum on the unit iLearn can be used for online discussion with other students enrolled in STAT395 or STAT818_STAT718 on any problems or topics related to the unit. The lecturer will visit the Forum from time to time.

Learning and Teaching activities

Lectures: Lectures begin in Week 1. Students are required to attend a 3-hour lecture each week. Topic(s) for each week are set in the Unit Schedule at the end of this unit outline. Students are encouraged to read relevant lecture notes before coming to the lecture.

An iLecture will be recorded for each lecture when possible and made available on the unit iLearn (under echo360) soon after the lecture is completed.

Tutorials and Tutorial exercises: Students are required to attend a 1-hour tutorial per week from Week 2. A set of tutorial exercises will be made available each week for students to practice, which is usually presented on the last slide(s) of each lecture. Its solution will be discussed in the tutorial class of the following week, and also made available on iLearn soon after the class. Students are encouraged to complete relevant tutorial exercises before coming to their tutorial class.

Assignments: Three assignments are set in this unit for students to complete independently. To assist with further learning, solutions to assignments (when possible) will be made available to students later on iLearn.

Note: There may be minor deviations from this timetable if insufficient time is available for some topics.

Tutorial participation has been brought back into this offering.