The primary goal of this course is to teach a variety of basic computing
skills that will be necessary for future courses in the statistics
curriculum. All computing will be done in the context of statistical
problems, and thus the course will provide a broad introduction to a range
of topics in statistical science, data analysis, modelling and statistical
practice and reporting. Topics will be selected from:
- Computing Skills:
- unix commands and tools, including the emacs text editor
- LaTeX document preparation software
- statistical analysis in S-Plus
- C programming
- Statistics:
- data types, data manipulation and analysis, including data sets
from a variety of application fields -- see the
datasets link
- methods of exploratory data analysis and statistical graphics
- statistical computing, data analysis, and graphics
- examples of problems of binary and count/categorical data, regression
problems and data, and others
- elements of statistical inference using probability models,
including basic issues of sampling-theory and Bayesian inference
- modeling "related" phenomena through the notion of hierarchical models
- statistical and mathematical techniques including elements of
simulation and linear/matrix algebra useful in statistics
Though this course does not include rigourous development of
statistical theory and methods, we will use and review various
concepts and methods of inference, so some familiarity with basic
statistics is desirable. Co-registration in STA 213 or recent experience
with similar courses is recommended.
All teaching will be done in unix. You are free to use whatever
platform you wish, however no support will be provided for platforms
other than unix.