MID-SEMESTER TEST: During Week 7, a test will be made available on the iLearn site of the unit. The test's due date is Friday 11.59pm in Week 7. Students are allowed a maximum of two hours and one attempt to complete the test befoe the deadline.

The only excuse for not completing the mid-semester test at the designated time period is documented illness or unavoidable disruption. In these special circumstances you may apply for special consideration via ask.mq.edu.au.

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. Discussions are allowed but the final work must be your personal effort.

• Assignment submission is via iLearn. You should upload this as a single PDF file. Assignments should be word-processed.
• 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).
• 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 assessment tasks must be submitted by the official due date and time. In the case of a late submission for a non-timed assessment (e.g. an assignment), if special consideration has NOT been granted, 20% of the earned mark will be deducted for each 24-hour period (or part thereof) that the submission is late for the first 2 days (including weekends and/or public holidays). For example, if an assignment is submitted 25 hours late, its mark will attract a penalty equal to 40% of the earned mark. After 2 days (including weekends and public holidays) a mark of 0% will be awarded. Timed assessment tasks (e.g. tests, examinations) do not fall under these rules.

FINAL EXAM POLICY: It is Macquarie University policy not to set early 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.

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 this supplementary examination period 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.

Lectures

You are required to attend one 3-hour combined lecture and SGTA class each week. Please consult the university timetables for the exact time and location of the class.

Prescribed texts

Students should obtain the lecture overheads from iLearn prior to the lecture. The lecture overheads are available module by module.

The following are recommended reading books for this unit:

• Computational Statistics Handbook with MATLAB®, W. L. Martinez and A. R. Martinez, Chapman & Hall. (QA276.4.M272)

• Local regression and likelihood, C. Loader, Springer-Verlag, 1999. QA276.8 .L6/1999.

• Quantile Regression, Roger Koenker, Cambridge University Press 2005, 

Unit webpage

Unit webpage is located on iLearn at https://ilearn.mq.edu.au.

You can only access the material on iLearn if you are formally enrolled in the unit. All lecturing materials are available at this webpage.

Teaching and Learning Strategy

The unit is taught in both traditional mode and external mode. In traditional mode, students are on campus in standard semesters with weekly lectures. In external mode, students access all teaching material from iLearn and do not attend lectures on campus.

Students are expected to

·         attend all the lectures if enrolled internally;

·         have read through the material to be covered using the lecture notes provided on iLearn;

·         submit assignments on time via iLearn;

·         participate the mid-semester test at the designated time; 

·         contact the unit convenor in advance if for any reason, you cannot hand in your assessment tasks on time;

Refer to the next section for a week-by-week list of topics to be covered in this unit. 

Software used in teaching

We are using MATLAB, R and JAGS/WinBUGS in teaching this unit. R, JAGS/WinBUGS are free software and are widely used nowadays by statisticians. More information about R can be found at http://www.r-project.org/, JAGS at "http://mcmc-jags.sourceforge.net" and WinBUGS at “http://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/bugs/”. Matlab is commercial software, but is available for Macquarie students and staff: https://web.science.mq.edu.au/it/matlab/.

Students should read the lecture notes, which will be available at the unit web page, before the lecture.

No substantial changes from the 2019 offering.