Math 343
Probability and Statistics
Fall 2008

Course Home Page

Course Description

Instructor

Randall Pruim
office: North Hall 284
phone: (616) 526-7113
E-mail: rpruim@calvin.edu

Time & Location

Section A

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 1:30-2:20, in North Hall 261

Office Hours

My schedule is still being determined, but it looks like I will usually be immediately after class, but we can make arrangements for other times as necesary. Feel free to catch me after class, send email, or just stop by to see when I am available.

Internet Resources

Email

I will maintain an email list of all students registered in this class and will occasionally use it to distribute information and reminders of various things pertaining to this course. If you prefer to read your email from an account other than your calvin student account and do not have it set up to forward automatically, send me email with the email address you prefer.

Please check your email daily. You are responsible for any information communicated via email.

Web Pages

In addition to this home page, I will also maintain a list of web resources pertaining to this course. You are responsible for any information appearing on the course web pages. Items I have prepared and maintain online include

• a customizable calendar of daily readings, lecture topics, exams, homework etc. (Last modification: Wednesday, 10-Dec-2008 16:51:10 EST.)
• a list of homework assignments and due dates.
• information about tests and exams (appearing shortly before each test date).

For quick access to these and other resources, see the navigation bar at the top of this page.

Other Important Information

See me

If you are having difficulty with any portion of the course, do not hesitate to see me. Do this as soon as possible, certainly well in advance of any deadlines (like tests) so that we can work to fix the problem.

Textbook

The required text for this course is a book I am in the process of writing: Foundations and Appications of Statistics It is available from the Calvin Campus Store.

Grading

Grading will be based on the following approximate weighting:

15%	Homework, etc.
60%	3 Tests (see calendar for tentative dates)
25%	Final Exam (12/13 @ 1:30 [12/16 @ 9:00?])

Tests should be taken when they are scheduled. I do not generally offer make-up, alternate or late tests. Instead, if you miss one test (for any reason) or if your final exam score is better than your worst test, then your final exam score will be substituted for that test.

Technology

When we need a statistics package in this course to ease our calculations or visualizations, we will use a program called R. R is a very powerful statistical tool and programming language and is being actively developed by statisticians from all over the world who contribute to the main program, its interface, or the many add-on modules (called packages) that are available to handle specialized tasks. R is free and available for Mac, PC, or Linux. It has also been installed on the computers in the Mathematics and Statistics Computer Lab (basement of North Hall) and on some other machines around campus (CS lab and Engineering lab, I think). We may also make ocassional use of Mathematica.

Special Circumstances

Occasionally there are special circumstances that require that the rules and guidelines above be adjusted for a particular student. In such cases, it is the responsibility of the student to inform me of the situation as soon as possible, so that the appropriate arrangements can be made. This includes, but is not limited to, students with documented disabilities.

This page maintained by:
Randall Pruim
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Calvin College
rpruim@calvin.edu