BUSI 275 Spring 2012 Homepage

Instructor

Dr. Sean Ho
twu@seanho.com
Hours: Tu 3-5pm, NWB 231
busi275.seanho.com
Class location: CanIL 115 Lab
Tu 11:40-14:25

Syllabus

General course information: objectives, prerequisites, text, policies, etc.

Schedule

Lectures and assignment due dates (subject to revision as the semester proceeds).

Lectures

Lecture notes in PDF format.

Homework

HW assignments (will be updated as the semester proceeds).

Term Project

Details on your term project, which includes a proposal, in-class presentation, and final paper.

Textbook Data

Sample datasets from the textbook, also used in lecture. These are copyrighted.
Also see the textbook's companion website, including Excel 2007 tutorials, self-study quizzes, and the PHStat2 software.

Excel Tips

Tips and tricks for using Excel, will be updated as the semester progresses.

Midterm Practise

Practise questions for the midterm exam on Tue 21 Feb.

Resources

Courses

You may find the material from the following courses helpful. I taught 275 last semester, and also similar courses MATH108 (for Nursing) and MATH102 (for Science). A link at the bottom takes you even further back.

Software

We use Excel in class not because it is the most easy-to-use, cheap, or powerful statistical software (far from it!), but because it is easily accessible and still widely used in the business world.
  • Download the PHStat2 Excel add-on used by the textbook. Also see the PHStat homepage.
  • For help and tips with Excel, Bill Jelen's "Mr. Excel" site is useful.
  • Excel is not the only spreadsheet software out there; you can try the free office suite LibreOffice, or even Google Docs (although their regression tools are pretty limited without using add-ons).
  • The social and health science folks often rely on IBM's SPSS, however it is not that easy to use, and is pretty expensive (although TWU has a site-license).
  • Stata is cheaper than SPSS and has a growing following; I've never used it myself.
  • SAS is the old, established industry leader, especially in financial services and business analytics. But they are (IMHO) way overpriced and a bit slow to embrace change. (I do hear they're a great company to work for, though!)
  • For those not shy of a command-line interface, there is also the very powerful (and free) R project. This is what I use personally; it is the de-facto standard amongst academic statisticians, and as such constantly has the most cutting-edge techniques added to its enormous ecosystem. R is not just software; it's a community!

Datasets

Some resources to find data for your term project:

Daily Devos

Every class starts with a short devotional from the Bible, to help keep everything in perspective!