Syllabus: STAT 200 Elementary Statistics (Summer 2016)

Section 014 – World campus

Instructor: Panayiotis Constantinou

Email: Use ANGEL email system

Email: Use ANGEL email system under Communicate tab. Emails received outside of ANGEL may go unanswered! NOTE: If you have your ANGEL email forwarded to another internet account then hitting reply to that email will NOT reply through ANGEL but instead in webmail. These, too, will not be answered. You will need to return to ANGEL and reply using the ANGEL email tools.

Instructor Availability:Correspondence for this course will take place through the ANGEL email system and discussion boards. ANGEL email is checked multiple times a day, Monday through Friday, and a response will be sent within 24 hours. ANGEL will be checked less frequently on the weekends. Please plan accordingly.

Course Description:

Statistics is the art and science of using sample data to make generalizations about populations. The topics covered in this course include:

  • methods for collecting and summarizing data
  • methods for evaluating the accuracy of sample estimates
  • techniques for making statistical inferences

Users of statistics -- researchers, government agencies like the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, companies like the automakers and drug industry, etc. -- make extensive use of the computer in applying statistical methods to their problems. So will you! This course will offer you plenty of practice in analyzing data from a variety of areas. As a result you should be well prepared for problem-solving involving statistics in the rest of your college courses, as well as gaining an understanding of the role of statistics in your daily life.

Lesson Notes: Notes will be available through the Lessons folder in ANGEL ().

Prerequisite: 2 units in algebra

Required Materials – Textbook and Software

Textbook:You must purchase one of the three textbook options below. Materials can be ordered from MBS Direct (the bookstore used by Penn State's World Campus). For pricing and ordering information, please see the MBS Direct Web site, located at The MyStatLab student access code is required.

Material Title / Edition / Author / ISBN / Source
MyStatLab Student Access Code Card with ebook access / Pearson / 9780321694645 / MBS
Statistics: Art and Science - With MyStatLab Access (Looseleaf) / 3rd / Agresti, Alan / Franklin, Christine / 9780321729545 / MBS
Statistics: Art and Science - With CD, ebook, and MyStatLab Access / 3rd / Agresti, Alan / Franklin, Christine / 9780321891952 / MBS

Software: Minitab Express is required for this course. It is compatible with both PC and Mac platforms. PC users also have the option of purchasing Minitab 17. For specific ordering instructions, refer to the Department of Statistics website:

Another choice could be using Minitab webapps through You need your PSU account to log in. One drawback of webapps is that you cannot access local files directly. You may find out how to load your local data into pass space at Getting your own copy of the software is highly recommended.

For those of you near a PSU campus, most campus labs have Minitabinstalled.

MyStatLab:

We will use Homework on MyStatLab as practice problems. You need your access code and the Course ID to log in.

The Course name on MyStatLab is: STAT 200, Summer 2016, Constantinou

The Course ID for this section is: constantinou80973

Assignments and Grading

Each lesson has one lab activity, required practice problems in MyStatLab, and one unit quiz. They are found at and in the “Lessons” folder in Angel. The deadlines are posted in the “Stat200_Schedule_Summer2016”. Grading for each lesson will be completed within 48 hours after the lesson deadline. In addition, onemidterm and one final exam will be required. The midterm and the final exam are both proctored.

Final Exam, Proctor Required - 110 minutes Lessons 1-12, No Software / 25% / August 4 - 11
Midterm, Proctor Required - 110 minutes Lessons 1-6, No Software / 25% / June 21 - 27
Lab Activity – Requires Minitab / 20% / 1 per lesson
Unit Quizzes – Requires Minitab / 20% / 1 per lesson
Practice Problems– Assignments on MyStatLab / 10% / 1 per lesson

The midterm and final exam must be proctored, and will be available through ANGEL. See the proctor information link: . The exam will be timed. Time will start when the exam is opened. The exam will automatically be submitted when the timer ends. One, student created, two-sided formula sheet will be allowed.

CAUTION: Since the midterm and the final exam will be delivered online the issue of technical problems may arise, for example ANGEL may not be available or your internet connection might be interrupted. In the case where the problem is ANGEL availability, I will take this under consideration. However, if your internet connection is the problem then on time completion is the student's responsibility. This problem is most common for those students who do not plan accordingly;

Final Exam (25% of final grade)

A final exam will be given at the end of the semester which will cover all lessons. The exam must be proctored, and will be available through ANGEL.The exam will be timed. Time will start when the exam is opened. The exam will automatically be submitted when the timer ends. One student created, two-sided formula sheet (8 ½” x 11”, printed or handwritten) will be allowed. The exam will close at midnight EST on the due date specified in the “Stat200_Schedule_Summer2016”. No late submissions will be accepted.The Final Exam will NOT require Minitab.

Midterm Exam (25% of final grade)

The midterm exam assesses your understanding of the concepts from lessons 1 through 6. The exam must be proctored, and will be available through ANGEL. The exam will be timed. Time will start when the exam is opened. The exam will automatically be submitted when the timer ends. One student created, two-sided formula sheet (8 ½” x 11”, printed or handwritten) will be allowed. The exam will close at midnight EST on the due date specified in the “weekly schedule.” No late submissions will be accepted.The midtermwill NOT require Minitab.

Lab Activities (20% of final grade)–All lab activities will be counted to your final grade.

  • Each lesson will include a Lab Activity.
  • The grading of activities will be done using a “0% or 100 % method. If all problems are attempted and all work is shown the student will receive a 100, even if your final answer is incorrect. Otherwise, the activity will receive a 0.
  • All activities will be available in ANGEL as a word document. You will complete the activity by typing your responses on the document, saving it, and submitting your solutions to the activity’s respective drop box also located in the Lab Activity folder for that week’s lesson.
  • There is no time restriction other than the due date.
  • Minitab will be necessary!
  • Submit only COMPLETED activities. Multiple submissions may result in a zero for that activity.
  • You are expected to write using complete, grammatically- and statistically-correct sentences where applicable.
  • Assignments submitted after the deadline will be docked 20 points per day late.

Unit Quizzes (20% of final grade) – All Graded Quizzes will be counted to your final grade.

  • Each lesson will include two Unit Quizzes. The one is for practice only and will not be considered for grade. The other one will be considered for grade. The practice quiz will have deadline 48 hours before the assignments due date. Once again the practice quiz will not be considered for final grade.Is not require to do it. In the practice quiz you will get an overall score and find out which questions you did wrong and which you did right. On the other hand the second quiz will be the only one that it will be graded and affect your final grade. You will distinguish them as “Practice Quiz” and “Graded Quiz”.
  • YOU MAY TAKE EACH QUIZ ONCE. The questions come from a pool of questions.
  • Most of the unit quizzes will require MINITAB in order to complete the quiz.
  • The quizzes will be timed (typically 30 to 50 minutes).
  • Once you begin the quiz, the timer begins and will not stop. Your quiz will automatically be submitted after the time expires.
  • All unit quizzes will be delivered using the ANGEL quiz tool.
  • Unit quizzes will pertain to content covered during that lesson.
  • CAUTION: Since these quizzes will be delivered online the issue of technical problems may arise, for example ANGEL may not be available or your internet connection might be interrupted. In the case where the problem is ANGEL availability, I will take this under consideration. However, if your internet connection is the problem then on time completion is the student's responsibility. This problem is most common for those students who do not plan accordingly; that is, they wait until the last few hours or minutes prior to the deadline until they take the quiz.

MyStatLab Practice Problems (10% of final grade) - All MyStatLab assignments will be counted in your grade.

  • Each lesson will include MyStatLab practice problems including both media and questions. The problems can be found in the following website .
  • As long as you see through all media and answer all questions, you will get 100% on each lesson, even if your final answer is incorrect. Otherwise, the homework will receive a 0.
  • All MyStatLab assignments will be counted in your grade. Other supplemental resources are available in MyStatLab, but will not be graded.
  • Any problems submitted late will receive a 50% point deduction.

Lesson Discussions

A discussion board will be available for each lesson. These forums can be used to discuss the corresponding lesson content. You can ask your peers’ specific questions, share examples, help explain difficult concepts, etc. The posts made will not be counted in your final grade.

Technology Caution

Since this course is delivered online, technical problems may arise. Cases where the problem is due to ANGEL availability can be considered, but personal computer issues are the student’s responsibility. Be sure to allow yourself enough time to complete the lessons to avoid these issues. If technical issues arise, you should immediately contact the World Campus helpdesk.

Grading Scale: The final letter grading will follow the standard University guidelines and are as follows (All grades will be available in the ANGEL grade book under Report tab):

F / D / C / C+ / B- / B / B+ / A- / A
0 / 60 / 70 / 77 / 80 / 83 / 87 / 90 / 93

Course Schedule

• Course begins16 May 2016

• Course ends 11 August 2016

Most students will spend, on average, about 12-16 hours working through each content lesson. Your workload may be more (or less) depending on your prior experience in statistics and computing.

Academic integrity is the pursuit of scholarly activity free from fraud and deception and is an educational objective of this institution. All University policies regarding academic integrity apply to this course.

Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to,

  • cheating,
  • plagiarizing,
  • fabricating of information or citations,
  • facilitating acts of academic dishonesty by others,
  • having unauthorized possession of examinations,
  • submitting the work of another person or work previously used without informing the instructor, or
  • tampering with or modifying the academic work of other students.

Examples: Any sharing of assignment solutions or answer keys via personal communication or websites other than those communications or web-based applications used as part of the course is not allowed. Copying from other students, copying from answer keys or solution sets or having tutors complete assignments for students is unacceptable. All of these are examples of academic dishonesty. Instructors regularly monitor the web for inappropriate posting of instructional materials.

It is expected that any work submitted is your own. Students in this class are expected to write up their problem sets or assignments individually. Students are expected to work on exams on their own, and to write their papers in their own words using proper citations. All exam answers must be your own, and you must not provide any assistance to other students, nor accept assistance from others during exams.

For any material or ideas obtained from other sources, such as the text or other information you find on the web, in the library, etc., a source reference must be given. Direct quotes from any source must be identified as such.

Working together: Class members may work on homework assignments in groups, but then each student must write up their answers separately. Students may study together for assessments, but then each student must complete assessments by themselves, using their own words. Students are not to copy assignment or exam answers from another person's paper and present them as their own; students may not plagiarize text from papers or websites written by others. If you become aware of students sharing answers, answer keys or solutions, please report these instances to your instructor.

Consequences: Students who present other people's work as their own, post their own work for others to copy, or post answer keys will receive at least a 0 on the assignment and may well receive an F or XF in the course.

Any instances of academic dishonesty WILL be pursued under the University and Eberly College of Science regulations concerning academic integrity. For more information on academic integrity, see Penn State's statement on plagiarism and academic dishonesty.

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities

Penn State welcomes students with disabilities into the University's educational programs. If you have a disability-related need for reasonable academic adjustments in this course, contact the Office for Disability Services (ODS) at 814-863-1807 (V/TTY). For further information regarding ODS, please visit the Office for Disability Services Web site at

Emergencies

In case of weather-related delays at the University, this online course will proceed as planned. If you are affected by a weather-related emergency, please contact your instructor at the earliest possible time to make special arrangements.

Military Statement

Veterans and currently serving military personnel and/or dependents with unique circumstances (e.g., upcoming deployments, drill/duty requirements, VA appointments, etc.) are welcome and encouraged to communicate these, in advance if possible, to the instructor in the case that special arrangements need to be made.

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