Math 114Q 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 for sections 9 and 11, which can always be found at www.cs.umb.edu/~eb/114/. Bookmark it in your browser, since you will be visiting often.

Syllabus

The current version is always available at www.cs.umb.edu/~eb/114/syllabus.html.

Prerequisites

Math Placement Test A

Where and when?

Both sections meet Tuesday and Thursday in H-UL-0029 (Mac Lab C), the Mac Lab on the upper level of the Healey Library. Section 9 is at 11 AM; section 11 at 2:00 PM.

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/.  Note that all of the machines in the labs on campus use the latest version of Microsoft Office (Office 2007 for PCs, Office 2008 for Macs). You can use an older version of Office, but you'll need to be careful about transferring files from school to home. We'll talk about this in class.

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 may also find a scientific calculator useful: it should have 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 and will be using the latest draft, which we will provide for you. We will be working on the book throughout the term - you can always find the latest version on line at this link. You may want to use the on line version even when it matches the hard copy you have, since that version has live links to the internet.

We may use parts of one famous old (but still current) book: Darrell Huff's How to Lie With Statistics . It may be available in the bookstore, certainly 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 12:30 - 2:00, usually W 3 - 4, and by appointment.

Maura Mast
Office - Science 3 178
Office phone: (617) 287-6454
e-mail: maura dot mast at umb dot edu
Office hours TTh 9:45 - 10:45, Tuesdays 2 - 3; 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).