Attendance and participation

We strongly encourage all students to participate actively in all learning activities. Regular engagement is crucial for your success in this unit, as these activities provide opportunities to deepen your understanding of the material, collaborate with peers, and receive valuable feedback from instructors, to assist in completing the unit assessments. Your active participation not only enhances your own learning experience but also contributes to a vibrant and dynamic learning environment for everyone.

Requirements to Pass this Unit

To pass this unit, you must:

• Achieve a total mark equal to or greater than 50%.

Hurdle Assessments

There is no Hurdle Assessment in this unit.

Late Submission Policy

• 5% penalty per day: If you submit your assessment late, 5% of the total possible marks will be deducted for each day (including weekends), up to 7 days.

  • Example 1 (out of 100): If you score 85/100 but submit 20 hours late, you will lose 5 marks and receive 80/100.

  • Example 2 (out of 30): If you score 27/30 but submit 1 day late, you will lose 1.5 marks and receive 25.5/30.

• After 7 days: Submissions more than 7 days late will receive a mark of 0.

• Extensions:

  • Automatic short extension: Some assessments are eligible for automatic short extension. You can only apply for an automatic short extension before the due date.

  • Special Consideration: If you need more time due to serious issues and for any assessments that are not eligible for Short Extension, you must apply for Special Consideration.

Need help? Review the Special Consideration page HERE.

Assessments where Late Submissions will be accepted:

• Assignments – YES, Standard Late Penalty applies;
• Final Exam – NO, unless Special Consideration is granted.

Special Consideration

The Special Consideration Policy aims to support students who have been impacted by short-term circumstances or events that are serious, unavoidable, and significantly disruptive, and which may affect their performance in assessment. If you experience circumstances or events that affect your ability to complete the assessments in this unit on time, please inform the convenor and submit a Special Consideration request through https://connect.mq.edu.au.

Written Assessments/Quizzes/Tests: If you experience circumstances or events that affect your ability to complete the written assessments in this unit on time, please inform the convenor and submit a Special Consideration request through https://connect.mq.edu.au.

Classes

Workshops (beginning in Week 1): There is one 1-hour workshop each week. During this hour, we will provide a brief overview of the week's content, run a Q&A session, and engage in some interesting activities together. 

Pre-recorded Lectures (released weekly from Week 1): There are no formal live lectures scheduled for this unit. Each week, we will have some video recordings covering the unit materials.

SGTA classes (beginning in Week 2): Students must register for and attend one 2-hour class per week.

The timetable for classes can be found on the University website at: https://publish.mq.edu.au

Enrolment can be managed using eStudent at: https://students.mq.edu.au/support/technology/systems/estudent

Technology Used and Required

This subject requires the use of the following computer software:

• R: R is a free statistical software package. Access and installation instructions may be found at: https://www.r-project.org/
• RStudio: RStudio is an open-source tool that is used to manage and present work performed using R. Access and installation instructions may be found at https://rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/
• LaTeX: LaTeX is a free mathematical typesetting program. Access and installation instructions may be found at: https://www.latex-project.org/get/
• Quarto: An open-source scientific and technical publishing system, installed by default with the latest release of RStudio. 

Students are invited to bring their own devices (BYOD), and a laptop is recommended. Acceptable platforms are Windows, Linux and Mac. 

Suggested textbooks

The following textbook is useful as a supplementary resource, for additional questions and explanations. They are available from the Macquarie University library:

• Wackerly, D.,  W. Mendenhall, and R. L. Scheaffer, Mathematical Statistics with Applications. Thomson Brooks/Cole, 7th edition, 2008.

Communication

We will communicate with you via your university email or through announcements on iLearn. Queries to convenors can either be placed on the iLearn discussion forum or sent to your lecturers from your university email address.

We value student feedback to be able to continually improve the way we offer our units. As such, we encourage students to provide constructive feedback via student surveys, to the teaching staff directly, or via the FSE Student Experience & Feedback link in the iLearn page.

Student feedback from the previous offering of this unit was very positive overall, with students pleased with the clarity around assessment requirements and the level of support from teaching staff. As such, no change to the delivery of the unit is planned; however, we will continue to strive to improve the level of support and student engagement.