Introduction

Welcome to this course on data research and analysis.  I hope you will find it both useful and enjoyable.  It has been designed to teach and sharpen research and analysis skills, focussing on the area of international commerce and transactions.  The course is intended to be comprehensive and practically oriented.  Briefly, we shall start off with a revision of basic approaches to research, proceeding to data sources and types, after which the emphasis moves towards locating, retrieving and evaluating data.  Finally, we shall study and perform tasks in which data are manipulated, analyzed and presented.

It is assumed that students are familiar with basic Microsoft software applications (Windows environment), particularly Excel.  Class presentations will require the use of PowerPoint.  Students are strongly advised and encouraged to develop and hone these skills.  Please don't hesitate to ask for help.

Most students will have already completed ITRN 500 and ITRN 503/4, or their equivalents, presupposing a knowledge of economics and international economics.  If you have not yet taken these classes and are not familiar with concepts referred to in class, be sure to ask questions.

Requirements

Course requirements include seven assignments and a final group presentation.  Additionally, you will be required to do a website presentation.  These assignments are due on the dates indicated in the syllabus.  The assignments themselves will be downloaded from the network on to the diskette provided to each student during the first class.
(Note:  Please read the entire assignment thoroughly and carefully, each time, before proceeding to do it.  Essential information, direction and clues are contained therein!)

Assigned reading should be completed as indicated in the syllabus.  Additional readings will be assigned and downloaded during the semester.

Grades are distributed as follows:  each of the seven assignments will count ten percent (10%), while the final group presentation will amount to twenty percent (20%) of the total grade.  Class participation, including the website presentation, will account for the final ten percent (10%) of the course grade.  Specific details will be provided in class.

Although class attendance is not compulsory at this university, the nature of the course material is such that attendance is essential.  There is a strong positive correlation between attendance and grades!  Additionally, class participation is factored into the final grade.
 

Reading Materials

There is no requirement to buy books for this class.

• Any basic statistics text would be useful, such as:  Lind, Douglas A. & Robert D. Mason.  Basic Statistics for Business and Economics.  2nd edition.  Chicago:  Irwin. 1997  (Two copies of this book will be on reserve in the Arlington Campus Library.)
• Any Excel workbook, if you are not familiar with this application, such as Merchant, Ronald;  Renee C. Goffinet & Virginia E. Koehler.  Basic Statistics Using Excel.  Chicago:  Irwin. 1997
• International Monetary Fund.  International Financial Statistics.  Washington, D.C.:  IMF.  various years.  (This will be handed out during class.)
• Supplementary reserve readings, as assigned during the semester

Class Schedule

1/21          Getting started:  Course introduction and administrative matters.
                  Distribution of diskettes, downloading assignments, and course overview.
                  Lecture: Review of research and research design 

1/28          View video on logical fallacies and critical thinking by Professor Jim Barry
                  Reading:  Articles (references distributed in class -- available online through GMU Libraries):

• “Fallacies” chapter
•  Bhagwati, Jagdish. "Samurais No More" Foreign Affairs, May-June 1994, 73/3
•  Altman, Roger C.  "Why Pressure Tokyo?" Foreign Affairs, May/June 1994, 73/3


Assignment:  Read the contents of the “Internet” folder on your diskette and start working on Part I

2/11          Using international transactions data

2/18         National accounts activity statistics
                 Reading:  Merchant, ch. 1 & 2
                 Assignment #2 due:  Basic Growth Calculations

2/25          International data resources
                 Basic approaches to searching for, locating and evaluating data sources
                 Assignment #3 due:  Exchange Rates

3/4           Balance of payments data
                 Assignment #4 due:  Search strategies and Boolean searching

3/11         Spring Break -- No Class

3/18         Sources of national activity statistics
                 Assignment:  Website presentation

3/25         Assignment #5 due:  Group Presentations
                 Reading:  Lind, ch. 15, pp. 473-496

4/1           Introduction to basic descriptive statistics
                Measures of central tendency and location
                Reading:  Merchant, ch. 3;  Lind, ch. 1 & 3
                Assignment #6 due:  Trade Weighted Exchange Rates

4/8          Time series data
                Exponential smoothing
                Lind, ch. 16

4/15         Introduction to regression
                Reading:  Merchant, ch. 10 & 13;  Lind, ch. 11 & 12
                Assignment #7 due:  Exponential Smoothing

4/22         Regression (contd.)

4/29         Final presentations

5/6          Reading Day -- No Class

5/13        Exam date: Final presentations (contd.)