HURDLES:  This unit has no hurdle requirements. Your final grade is determined by adding the marks obtained for your examinations and assignments. Students should aim to get at least 60% for the course work in order to be reasonably confident of passing the unit.

ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION:  Assignment submission will be online through the iLearn page.

Submit assignments online via the appropriate assignment link on the iLearn page. A personalised cover sheet is not required with online submissions. Read the submission statement carefully before accepting it as there are substantial penalties for making a false declaration.

•   Assignment submission is via iLearn. You should upload this as a single scanned PDF file.

•   Please note the quick guide on how to upload your assignments provided on the iLearn page.

•   Please make sure that each page in your uploaded assignment corresponds to only one A4 page (do not upload an A3 page worth of content as an A4 page in landscape). If you are using an app like Clear Scanner, please make sure that the photos you are using are clear and shadow-free.

•   It is your responsibility to make sure your assignment submission is legible.

•   If there are technical obstructions to your submitting online, please email us to let us know.

You may submit as often as required prior to the due date/time. Please note that each submission will completely replace any previous submissions. It is in your interests to make frequent submissions of your partially completed work as insurance against technical or other problems near the submission deadline.

LATE SUBMISSION OF WORK: All assignments or assessments must be submitted by, and class tests taken by the official due date and time . No marks will be given to late work unless an extension has been granted following a successful application for Special Consideration. Please contact the unit convenor for advice as soon as you become aware that you may have difficulty meeting any of the assignment deadlines. It is in your interests to make frequent submissions of your partially completed work. Note that later submissions completely replace any earlier submission, and so only the final submission made before the due date will be marked.

FINAL EXAM POLICY:  examinations for individuals or groups of students. All students are expected to ensure that they are available until the end of the teaching semester, that is, the final day of the official examination period. The only excuse for 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.

SUPPLEMENTARY EXAMINATIONS:

IMPORTANT: 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. If you apply for special consideration, you must give the supplementary examination priority over any other pre-existing commitments, as such commitments will not usually be considered an acceptable basis for a second application for special consideration. 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 (https://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.

Every week there is one two hour lecture and one two hour practical in this unit. Lectures commence in Week 1 and Practicals in Week 2.

Technologies used and required: Lecture material will be placed on iLearn. The statistical package SPSS will be used and is available in ilab.

Recommended Texts: There is no set textbook for this unit. Useful reference texts for the Market Research part of this unit are

• Applied Multivariate Techniques by Subhash Sharma (QA278.S485/1996)

• Applied Multivariate Methods for Data Analysis by Dallas E. Johnson (QA278.J615/1998)

• Multivariate Statistical Methods by Bryan F. J. Manly (QA278.M35/2004)

There is no suitable text for Conjoint Analysis. Most treatments in Market Research textbooks are either too simple or too technical. A useful reference for the Forecasting part is

• Forecasting: Methods and Applications by Spyros Makridakis, Steven C. Wheelwright and Rob J. Hyndman (HD30.27.M34/1998)

Week                   Topic                                                                                                                                                                               

1 (29 July)            Principal Component Analysis (PCA)

2 (5 August)          PCA

3 (12 August)        Factor Analysis (FA)

4 (19 August)        FA

5 (26 August)        Conjoint Analysis (CA)

6 (2 September)    Revision and Class Test 1

7 (9 September)    Introduction to Forecasting

8 (30 September)  ARIMA models

9 (8 October)         ARIMA models

10 (14 October)     Dynamic Regression models and intervention analysis

11 (21 October)     Exponential smoothing and Periodicity. 

12 (28 October)     Revision and Class Test 2

13 (4 November)   No lectures

Please note that the Assignment is due 2 pm 25 October 2019 (Friday Week 11)

The number of assignments has been reduced from two to one and the two class tests are now worth 15% each instead of 10% each.