Welcome
Welcome to my STAT 657 web site, and to the course. I'm looking forward to
having a small class of somewhat advanced students. (I've been teaching mostly
core classes (for the MS Statistical Science program) lately.)
With this course, I plan
to follow the text book rather closely (but will supplement it
with some additional material). I will also cover some additional procedues that
we can do with the software (but aren't covered in the text).
I will expect you to read the book very carefully
before class each week, and also read over the course notes (assuming I can keep ahead
and give you the notes at least a week ahead of time). This way, you
shouldn't have to take many notes during class and can just sit back and pay attention
to the lectures during which (1) I'll try to emphasize the important parts of the book and
the notes, and (2) I'll try to simplify some of the more complicated parts of the material.
In addition to making use of a
required text, you will be expected to use
StatXact 9 (or
somehow obtain the same results that StatXact gives) for a lot of the
homework. Since StatXact is not available in any of the GMU computing
labs, I've arranged for the company that sells it,
Cytel
to make copies available to you at an extremely reduced price. The
commercial price of a single copy of StatXact is $1400.00, and they are
willing to sell you a copy for $50.
Unless you already have acess to the latest version of
StatXact,
version 9, and will continue to have access to it through early
December, I think that you should take advantage of the greatly reduced
pricing and buy a copy. (Note: The reduced price copy of StatXact will expire at the end
of December. You will download it using a link that Cytel will e-mail to you. So be sure to give me
the e-mail address that you wish to use. (It might be best if everyone just uses their GMU e-mail address.))
As opposed to you
contacting the company directly, they want me to collect the money
and place a single order
for all of the copies that are desired. So that we can start using the
software soon, I plan to submit the order on Wednesday, September 8, and so
you should decide what you want to do and give me a check (or cash) for the proper
amount by no later than Tuesday, September 7. (I'll tell you who to make your check out to later.)
Before the first class meeting on Aug. 31, try to go over the
syllabus carefully in addition to reading Ch. 1 and the first
half of Ch. 2 of the text book. (Note:
This web page contains some comments about the first portion of Ch. 1 of the text.)