Stat 102 - Syllabus

Course Description

This course has two primary objectives: the first is to provide students with the basic statistical concepts for reading and interpreting statistical analyses from the life sciences and medical literature; the second is to introduce some of the common statistical tools used in biostatistical applications and to apply these to real problems. Topics include: basic concepts and tools of probability and conditional probability, independence, two-by-two tables, Simpson's paradox, medical diagnosis, ROC curves, study designs for medical problems, inference and hypothesis testing for randomized clinical trials's and basic survival analysis. Emphasizes role of biostatistics in modern society.

The course text is Principles of Biostatistics by M. Pagano and K. Gauvreau (2nd Edition). Other class material, including the course calendar, will be available online at the course web site:

http://www.stat.duke.edu/courses/Fall12/sta102

Course announcments, grades, discussion forums for questions, and email lists are available on the Course-Info site:

TBA

To log on to Course Info, use your ACPUB user name and password.

You should expect to spend 6-8 hours per week outside of lecture and labs on this course.

Homework Assignments

There will be weekly problem sets listed on the course calendar. All homework assignments are due at the beginning of lecture on the due date listed. In order to master the material, it is important to work through all exercises. You are encouraged to ask the professor and the TAs for hints (in person or by e-mail), after you have tried to solve the problems on your own. Office hours are listed on the Syllabus or can be arranged by appointment. The Department of Statistical Science operates a Statistical Education Center in room 025 Old Chem, where TAs and statistics graduate students are available to answer questions. Successful completion of these exercises is essential for doing well on exams. Problem sets will be graded and returned the following week.

There will also be periodic Data Analysis Projects that involve analyzing data and writing up a report summarizing results. For data analysis and in some homework exercises, we will be using R, a freely available software package (see here for information on downloading and a tutorial.

Exams

The In-class Midterm Exams are closed-book and closed-notes. You should bring a calculator capable of taking square roots, logs, powers, exponentials, etc. to lecture and recitation. Students who miss an exam must provide a Dean's Excuse in order to take a make-up exam; check with your academic dean for details.

Grading

Course grades will be a weighted average of the In-class Midterms (25% each), Homework Assignments (15%) and Data Analysis Labs (10%). Grades will be available on the Course Info site.

You have one week after an homework assignment or exam has been returned to request a regrade if you feel that an error has been made. Submit a written request detailing the nature of the grading error to your TA along with the relevant quiz or exam. Please keep in mind that papers submitted for regrading may be reviewed in their entirety, possibly resulting in a net gain or a net loss of points.

Honor Code

While you are encouraged to discuss ideas with each other to facilitate learning the material, the work that is turned in must be your own. Direct copying of someone else's work, allowing some else to copy your work, and doing work for others (including computer assignments) are examples of violations of the Duke Honor Code and will be referred to the Undergraduate Judicial Board.