Classes
They will start in Week 1. You should plan 10 hours of learning each week including attending lectures each week.
Required and Recommended Texts and/or Materials
Note that some of the following will be provided to students during semester.
Boen J & Zahn D, The Human Side of Statistical Consulting, Lifetime Learning Pubs, Belmont CA, 1982. (Not available in library)
Boomer K, Rogness N & Jersky B, Statistical consulting courses for undergraduates: fortune or folly, JSE, 15(3), 2007. (Electronic version QA276.18)
Chatfield C, Problem Solving: A Statistician's Guide, 2nd ed., Chapman and Hall, London, 1995. (QA276.12 .C457 1995)
Derr J, Statistical Consulting: A Guide to Effective Communication, Duxbury 2000. (HA29 .D386/2000)
Finch S & Gordon I, Lessons we have learned from post-graduate students, ICOTS8, 2010.
Hand DJ and Everitt BS (eds.), The Statistical Consultant in Action, Cambridge Uni Press, 1987. (Sections 1, 2 and 4 are available in Google.books)
Mackisack M & Petocz P, Projects for advanced undergraduates, ICOTS6, 2002.
McGinn M, Learning to use statistics in research: a case study of learning in a university-based statistical consulting centre, SERJ, 2010.
Peter Petocz, Anna Reid (2010) On Becoming a Statistician - A Qualitative View. International Statistical Review. 78(2): 271-286.
Rothman E, Teaching students and staff consultancy skills, ICOTS7, 2006.
Smith H & Walker J, Experiences with research teams comprised of graduate students, faculty researchers and a statistical consulting team, ICOTS8, 2010.
Wild C & Pfannkuch M, Statistical thinking in empirical enquiry, International Statistical Review, 67(3), 1-12.
ICOTS, SERJ and International Stat Review papers are available at http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/publications.php
International Statistical Institute http://www.isi-web.org/
The Statistical Society of Australia http://www.statsoc.org.au/
American Statistical Association http://www.amstat.org/
Statistical Society of Canada http://www.ssc.ca/en/whats-new
EURO (The Association of European Operational Research Societies) website: https://www.euro-online.org/web/pages/1/home
Australian Society for Operations Research http://www.asor.org.au/
INFORMS (The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) website: https://www.informs.org/
Technologies used and required
We will use iLearn for distribution of course notes, readings, data sets, solutions, announcements and discussions. We would like you to use the ‘Discussions’ to communicate with other students and the lecturers to enable transparency between all the students and the lecturers. You can access the unit iLearn site from http://ilearn.mq.edu.au using your Student ID number and myMQ Portal password. If you have any problems go to the http://www.mq.edu.au/iLearn/student_info/
If you have a personal question, please send an e-mail to one of the lecturers through the iLearn e-mail facility (called dialogue) or alternatively a regular e-mail using your Macquarie University student e-mail account.
The lecturers will make announcements via iLearn. Accordingly, you should make sure you log in and read the posts at least twice a week. You might consider subscribing to iLearn posts this way you will not miss any posts.
Teaching and Learning Strategy
- Readings will be provided through iLearn.
- Weekly learning activities are designed for students to work together in groups and to learn together.
- Assessments are designed to enhance self reflection and peer assessment as well as providing individual learning if a real life problem requires an unknown statistical or mathematical technique to be used for a proper solution to the problem at hand.