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Vancouver Island University                             

DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS  

               MATH 181 : Introduction

                               to a New World of

                            Probability and Statistics

           for Fisheries and Aquaculture and Resource Management Officer students
                                                SPRING   2003
 

                                   Instructor:  Lev V. Idels 

Office Hours: TBA

Office Location: 360/304 Nanaimo Campus; Ph: 7533245 Local 2429;

E-mail: idelsl@mala.bc.ca

    What do weather, inflation rates, and movie stars have in common? We can consider each of them to be a data set (collection of information) that we can analyze, use to make predictions, and explore in a variety of ways. The word Statistics is derived from the Latin word status (meaning “state”). Statistics has two basic meanings: We use it when referring to actual numbers derived from data; a second meaning refers to Statistics as a method of analysis.
You are probably wondering what you’ll get from the course. Most of the important decisions in life involve incomplete information. We are often forced into the position of making a guess based on limited information. To guess is cheap; to guess wrongly is expensive.

Statistical Methods can help you make the best educated guess.

Read the following material. It describes how this course will be run. You will be expected to be aware of everything on this document and to act accordingly.

Textbook: Essentials of Statistics by Mario F. Triola (8^th edition).

Course Objective:
An introduction to descriptive statistics: organizing, displaying, and summarizing data with an elementary introduction to hypothesis testing and confidence intervals. Topics include graphing, measures of central tendency and dispersion, linear regression, correlation, probability, probability distributions, exploratory data analysis, and random sampling. Statistical software is used to illustrate concepts and remove computational drudgery of statistics.

Lecture Notes

Prerequisite: Admission to the Fisheries and Aquaculture and Resource Management Officer Program.

Supplies: Computer disks, Calculator with Stats

Practice Problems: Homework Assignments are on a weekly basis. Homework Assignments are meant to let you work out for yourself some of the ramifications of the concepts we discuss.  Strategy and Good advice: Because of the many different ideas introduced in Stat 181 my main suggestion for the course is to avoid falling behind. It is almost impossible to cram for this course and do well. Make use of the fine resources of the Math Centre (Room 360/303) and regularly try the practice problems to check your understanding of the course material

Evaluation:

      Labs and Project Project for Math181             - 16%(8%+8%)

      Three Midterms                  -44%=14%+15%+15%

The dates for the midterm tests are Jan 30^th , Feb 20^th ,  and March 20^th .

Final Exam                        - 40 % (TBA)

The closed book Midterms test only the material covered during the preceding period. The styles of the tests will more resemble problems considered during class than textbook problems. You should bring a calculator to every test. You must pass the final exam in order to pass the course.

There will be no make-up tests.  If you have a serious medical reason for missing test, then you must provide me with a written request to be excused, and this must include a note from a physician. Your score on the comprehensive part of the final exam will be used in place of the missed work. 

GRADES:  Grades are awarded roughly as follows. 

Which of the above intervals contains your overall percentage, and nothing else determines your grade. You get what you get!

                             ENJOY THE COURSE!