School of Agriculture and Natural Resources

 


Course Outline for AGSC 135

COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN RESEARCH I

 

Spring 2001


INSTRUCTOR:

Dr. Walid H. Shayya

Instructor Contact Information


GENERAL COURSE DESCRIPTION:

AGSC 135 is the first of two one-credit courses in the laptop curriculum of Agricultural Science involving the application of agricultural statistics and computers in research. The course encompasses an introduction to statistical methods to agricultural science students using examples and applications to which students can easily relate.  The course also focuses on teaching students basic statistical analysis using the MS Excel spreadsheet program and other pertinent computer tools.  Students enrolled in AGSC 135, which is part of the laptop curriculum, will be introduced to these important concepts through lectures and exercises that they may complete on their laptops.  Emphasis will be placed on providing the student with problem-solving skills and the ability to interpret the results of basic statistical analysis.

Following a brief introduction to statistics and statistical inference, students enrolled in AGSC 135 are introduced to common measures of central tendency and dispersion used in summarizing data followed by an introduction to the main concepts of probability and probability distributions.  Towards the end of the semester, students enrolled in AGSC 135 will be provided with key material on sampling and sampling distributions.


COURSE OBJECTIVES:

  1. To provide the student with a basic understanding of statistical methods and probability.
  2. To provide the student with an appreciation of the types of problems in agriculture that can be analyzed statistically.
  3. To acquaint the student with the use of computer technology in interpreting research data and making presentations.
  4. To get the student acquainted with using the laptop in his/her courses.

OFFICE HOURS:

The instructor's designated office hours are on Tuesday (3:00 to 5:00 p.m.), Wednesday (11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon), Thursday (4:00 to 5:00 p.m.), and Friday 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon). Students are also welcome to make appointments to see the instructor at other times. Students with disabilities who require accommodations to fully-participate in the course activities are requested to contact the instructor within the first two weeks of the semester.


CONTACT HOURS AND CLASS SCHEDULE:

This is a one-credit hour course. The class includes one contact hour per week for 15 weeks. The class is scheduled for Tuesdays, 5:00 to 5:50 p.m., Room 102, Marshall Hall.


TEXTBOOK(S):

Davis, B. 2000. Introduction to Agricultural Statistics. Delmar, Albany, New York.


CLASS POLICIES:


GRADE COMPOSITION:


GRADING SCHEME:

The distribution of grades in this course will be based on the A-F College grading scheme. The letter grades correspond to the following percentage scale: A (90-100%), A- (87-89.9%), B+ (83-86.9%), B (80-82.9%), B- (77-79.9%), C+ (73-76.9%), C (70-72.9%), C- (67-69.9%), D+ (63-66.9%), D (60-62.9%), and F (<60%).


OUTLINE OF TOPICS:

Week

Lecture Topic*

Textbook
Chapter(s)

Homework
Assignment
and Due Date

1 - Introduction to AGSC135
- Variables and summation
Chapter 1 (pages 1-7) #1, Problems 2 and 3 on page 8 (Due on 1/30/2001)
2 - Different Forms of Data
Presenting Data
Chapter 2 (pages 9-18)  
3 - Measuring Central Tendency of Data Chapter 2 (pages 18-24) #2, Problems 1a,b,c and 4a,b,c on page 31 (Due on 2/13/2001)
4 - Measures of Dispersion Chapter 2 (pages 24-28)  
5 - Data Properties of Importance Chapter 2 (pages 28-30) #3, Problems 4d,e and 5 on pages 31 and 32 (Due on 2/27/2001)
6 Break 1 (No class)    
7 Progress Examination I (Feb. 27, 2001) Chapters 1 and 2  
8 - Summarizing Ungrouped Data Excel Hands-on Exercise  
9 - Summarizing Grouped Data On-Line Handout on Common Excel Function #4, Problem set on summarizing data using Excel (Due on 3/20/2001)
10 - Methods of Counting (permutations and combinations) Chapter 3 (pages 33-36)  
11 - Probability
- Sets of Data
Chapter 3 (pages 36-40) #5, Problems 1, 2, and 4 on page 46 (Due on 4/17/2001)
12 Break 2 (No class)    
13 - Random Variables
- Rules of Probability
- Mathematical Expectation
Chapter 3 (pages 40-45) #6, Problems 7, 11, and 13 on page 47 (Due on 4/24/2001)
14 - Probability Density Functions
- Binomial Probability Distribution
Chapter 4 (pages 49-52)  
15 - Poission Probability Distribution
- Normal Probability Distribution
Chapter 4 (pages 53-59) #7, Problems 8 and 11 on page 61 (Due on 5/11/2001)
16 Progress Examination II (April 17, 2001) Chapters 3 and 4  
17 - Probability and Non-probability Based Samples
- Sampling Distribution
Chapter 5 (pages 63-72)  
  Final Examination (comprehensive) Chapters 1 thru 5  

*The topics and corresponding dates listed in the table above are tentative and may be subject to change during the semester.


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Web site developed and maintained by Dr. Walid Shayya, Professor, Morrisville State College.
Last modified on March 28, 2012.