Students enrolled in this unit are required to complete three assignments, and sit a three-hour written examination.

Assignments:

The three assignments (15% each) are set for students to complete independently, applying the knowledge gained from lectures and their own reading, with and/or without using the statistical software, SAS, and they will be made available on iLearn.

Each of the three assignments should be submitted electronically on the unit iLearn by its due date and time specified in the assignment. Students must keep a soft or hard copy of any assignment submitted. In the event of an assignments being misplaced, a replacement of it will be requested.

No extension will be granted for any assessment task without an application for special consideration being submitted and approved.

In the case of a late submission for the assessments, if no special consideration has been granted, 10% of the earned mark will be deducted for each day that the submission is late, up to a maximum of 50%. After 5 days, including weekends and public holidays, a mark of 0% will be awarded for the assignment. NOTE: It is not the intention of this late penalty policy to cause a student to fail the unit when they have submitted their assignment no more than 5 days after the due date and they would have otherwise passed. In this case, if deductions for late assignments result in the final unit mark for a student being less than 50, when otherwise it would have been 50 or greater, the student's final mark will be exactly 50.

Examination:

There will be a three-hour written examination that will be timetabled within the official University Examination Timetable. The University Examination Timetable will be available in draft form approximately eight weeks before the commencement of the the University examinations and in final form approximately four weeks before the commencement of the examinations at: http://students.mq.edu.au/student_admin/exams/.

The only exception to not sitting an examination at the designated time is because of documented illness or unavoidable disruption. In these special circumstances, you may apply for special consideration via ask.mq.edu.au/.

If you receive special consideration for the final exam, a supplementary exam will be scheduled in the interval between the regular exam period and the start of the next session. By making a special consideration application for the final exam you are declaring yourself available for a resit during the supplementary examination period of 17 - 21 December 2018 and will not be eligible for a second special consideration approval based on pre-existing commitments. Please ensure you are familiar with the policy prior to submitting an application. You can check the supplementary exam information page on FSE101 in iLearn (bit.ly/FSESupp) for dates, and approved applicants will receive an individual notification one week prior to the exam with the exact date and time of their supplementary examination.

Classes

Internal students (STAT818 S2 Day) are required to attend a 3-hour lecture per week beginning in Week 1, and may also attend (not compulsory) a 1-hour laboratory tutorial class designed for STAT395 students, beginning in Week 2.

The timetable for classes can be found on the University web site at: http://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 (https://ilearn.mq.edu.au/) in advance.

External students (STAT818 S2 External) are expected to study the course notes and attempt the weekly tutorial exercises. The course notes for each week will be made available on iLearn prior to the lecture. Solution to each tutorial, if relevant, will be made available after it is discussed in the STAT395 tutorial class.

There is no on-campus session for distance (external) students in this unit.

You are welcome to contact the lecturer with questions related to the unit by email. Only the Macquarie University student email accounts may be used to communicate with staff. For external students only, questions relating to course administration should be directed to the postgraduate administrator: Ms Lesley Mooney Phone: 61 2 9850 8550 E-mail: lesley.mooney@mq.edu.au

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. 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 (https://iLearn.mq.edu.au/) at least one day before the lecture. Internal students should 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 place from time to time.

Learning and Teaching activities

Lectures: Lectures begin in Week 1. Internal 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 the lecture.

An iLecture will be recorded for each lecture when possible and made available on iLearn (under ECHO³⁶⁰) soon after the lecture is completed.

Tutorial Exercises: Each week a set of tutorial exercises will be made available for students to practice, which is usually presented on the last slide(s) of each lecture. Its solution will be discussed in the STAT395 tutorial class of the following week (starting from Week 2), and also made available on iLearn soon after the class.  

Assignments: Three assignments are set in this unit for students to complete independently. To assist with further learning, solution to each assignment (when possible) will be made available on iLearn, soon after the assignment being marked.

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