Course Description

From the catalog:
This course covers the basic algebra and technological tools used in the social, physical and life sciences to analyze quantitative information. The emphasis is on real world, open-ended problems that involve reading, writing, calculating, synthesizing, and clearly reporting results. Topics include descriptive statistics, linear, and exponential models. Technology used in the course includes computers (spreadsheets, internet) and graphing calculators.

Course web page

You are looking at the course web page, which can always be found at www.cs.umb.edu/~eb/m114/. Bookmark it in your browser, since you will be visiting often.

Syllabus

The current version is always available at www.cs.umb.edu/~eb/m114/syllabus.html. You can find lecture notes at www.cs.umb.edu/~eb/m114/lectureNotes/.

Prerequisites

Math Placement Test A

Where and when?

We meet Tuesday and Thursday 1:00-2:15 in H-UL-0029 (Mac Lab C), the Mac Lab on the upper level of the Healey Library.

Hardware and Software

Much of our work this semester will use a computer for email, internet research, writing and data analysis. The classroom is equipped with Macintosh machines, but any PC will do as long as it has a web browser and Microsoft office or Open Office, which is freely available at http://www.openoffice.org/.

All public computers on campus are so equipped. If you have access to one elsewhere it will probably do too.

The best way to move computer files from one machine to another is with a small portable disk ("flash drive", "thumb drive", "usb stick"). Buy yourself one - they're not expensive. But they are easy to lose (Professor Bolker has lost two) so take care of yours.

You will also need a scientific calculator: one with at least one of these keys: log, exp, ln, xy, yx. A calculator that can just add, subtract, divide and multiply won't do for this course. You will not need a graphing calculator.

Textbooks

The good news and the bad news is that there is no textbook that covers the material in the way we have chosen to present it. In fact we are writing one based on what we learn while teaching you. We will make lecture notes available: an outline before each class and a summary after.

We will use one famous old (but still current) book: Darrell Huff's How to Lie With Statistics . It's available in the bookstore, and also from Amazon.com, where it probably costs less. You can even find used copies there. For a serious review of the importance of this book, see Darrell Huff and Fifty Years of How to Lie With Statistics.

Instructors

Ethan Bolker
Office - Science 3 179
Office phone: (617) 287-6444
e-mail: eb at cs dot umb dot edu
Office hours TTh 2:30-3:30, usually W 3-4, and by appointment.

Maura Mast
Office - Science 3 172
Office phone: (617) 287-6454
e-mail: maura dot mast at umb dot edu
Office hours  TTh 11:30 - 12:45, often Wednesday 11 - 12, and by appointment. Feel free to e-mail me to set a time to meet.

The best way to reach us is by email. We read it regularly pretty much all day every day. But please do not send us attachments, and do not send us email meant to be read as a web page (tell your email software to send plain text, not html).