Course Instructor:

Dr. George Vachadze, Department of Economics, Lucille and Jay Chazanoff School of Business, College of Staten Island, City University of New York

Email: george.vachadze@csi.cuny.edu

Class Date, Time, & Place

MON and WED between 10:10 – 12:05 PM, Zoom link can be found here.

Online Office Hrs.

MON between 5:30 – 6:30 PM and FRI between 11:15 – 12:15 PM or by appointment. Office time can be booked here on a first come first serve basis. The microphone is needed to communicate during office hours. A webcam is desired to have.

Prerequisites

1) Successful completion of the CUNY/ACT Writing Skills Test and CUNY/ACT Reading Sample Test
2) ECO 101 or ECO 111 or ECO 112
3) MTH 121 or 123 or higher
4) BUS 150 or BUS 215 or BUS 250 or CSC 102 or CSC 126.

Textbook

Introductory Business Statistics by Holmes, A., Illowsky, B., and Dean, S. Publication Date: 2017. PDF VERSION ISBN-13 978-1-947172-47. Publisher: OpenStax. This is a free, “open source” textbook, which can be freely downloaded from here.

Course Description

Development and application of modern statistical methods, including such elements of descriptive statistics and statistical inference as correlation and regression analysis, probability theory, sampling procedures, normal distribution and binomial distribution, estimation, and testing of hypotheses.

Technical Support

Helpdesk support is available by calling 718-982-HELP or by contacting helpdesk@csi.cuny.edu Additional information can be found here. The following link shows how to access virtual labs, Blackboard help, mobile device setup, and more. Blackboard-related questions can be addressed to Blackboard@gvachadze

Learning Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course students should be able to:

1. Present and summarize data using charts and tables
2. Demonstrate knowledge of the basic probability theory by performing calculations and interpreting results.
3. Read the statistical tables such as the standard normal distribution, t-distribution, and F-distribution, and calculate the probabilities of random variables having these distributions.
4. Understand the concepts of a sampling distribution and their role in making a statistical inference.
5. Do simple point and interval estimation.
6. Do hypothesis testing for the population parameters and interpret results.
7. Understand a simple regression model.

Assessment and Measurement

Please see the detailed course schedule at the end of this syllabus for more detailed information. You are welcome to bring your laptop to class. Our class meetings will be a combination of instructor lectures, discussions, student participation, and presentations. It is the college attendance policy as noted in the faculty handbook: “A student who is absent for more than 15% of the class hours in the semester will be assigned a WU (withdrawn unofficially), subject to the discretion of the instructor.” For more information on this matter and related areas, consult the latest catalog under “attendance policies.” I will assign a WU grade if you miss more than four class meetings.

Breakdown of the Course Grade

Online Syllabus Quiz – 2%
Discussion Board Post – 3%
Online Weekly Quizzes – 45%
Final Exam (cumulative) – 50%

Grading Scale

I reserve the right to curve the final grade, but only to improve the letter grade, never to bring them down. I will start with the following curve: 93 is the lowest A; 90 is the lowest A-; 87 is the lowest B+; 83 is the lowest B; 80 is the lowest B-; 77 is the lowest C+; 70 is the lowest C; 60 is the lowest D; below 60 is an F.

Course Syllabus Quiz (2% in the overall grade)

Course syllabus quiz acts as a contract to verify understanding of important elements of the syllabus. A syllabus quiz (a) helps the instructor to avoid answering the same questions repeatedly, and (b) helps students to clarify any misconceptions about course content or policies, important dates, assignments, exams, topics covered, the instructor’s preferred method of communication, etc. After completing the syllabus quiz you will receive immediate feedback to minimize any confusion.

Discussion Board Posts (3% in the overall grade)

You should make three online discussion board posts.

Week 1: Ice Breaker (1% in the overall grade): Create a thread within a forum and call it your first name & last name. Within a thread introduce yourself and address the following questions (1) Where are you from? (2) What is your major? (3) When do you plan to graduate? (4) Do you work and if yes where? (5) What’s the ideal dream job for you? (6) What would it be if you could pick up a new skill in an instant? (7) Why are you taking this class? (8) Why is your expectation from this class?

Week 13: Usefulness of this course (1% in the overall grade): Create a thread within a forum and call it your first name & last name. Within a thread discuss your strengths and weakness in the topics covered in this course and indicate how this course might help you to achieve your career goals.

Week 14: Likes and Dislikes about this course (1% in the overall grade): Create a thread within a forum and call it your first name & last name. Within a thread provide feedback about the course, content analyzed, likes/dislikes, interesting/useful topics, and discussions in the course.

Final Exam (50% in the overall grade)

This is a blackboard-based, cumulative, online exam. The purpose of the final exam is to evaluate your exit knowledge of the topics covered in class.

Online Assignments (45% in the overall grade)

There will be regular online quizzes administered during the semester. Each quiz consists of several questions and every question would be worth either 1 (for a correct answer) or 0 (for an incorrect answer) point. Each online quiz and its due date will be MONs at 10:09 am.

Policies

• Do not miss classes. If you do not intend to attend classes regularly, you should withdraw from the course.
• There will be no extra credit assignment.
• Usage of cell phones or other electronic devices during lectures and exams is prohibited.

Attendance Policy

This is the college attendance policy noted in the faculty handbook: “A student who is absent for more than 15% of the class hours in the semester will be assigned a grade of WU (withdrew unofficially), subject to the discretion of the instructor.

Academic Integrity

In an online environment, you must assign proper credit to work that is not your own. Plagiarism is a serious offense. Besides, when working in groups you have a moral and social responsibility to contribute consistently and to the best of your abilities. Be sure to communicate with your group members to be sure that credit is assigned correctly. For a full discussion and examples, please see CUNY’s Academic Integrity Policy as stated in CSI’s undergraduate catalog. Details can be found here.

Academic Accommodation

This course will adhere to CUNY’s policy on accommodations. Qualified students with disabilities will be provided reasonable academic accommodations if determined eligible by the Center for Student Accessibility (CSA). More details about CSA can be found here. The instructor must receive written verification of a student’s eligibility from CSA promptly. It is the student’s responsibility to initiate contact with CSA staff and to follow the established procedures for having the accommodation notice sent to the instructor.

Course Withdrawal Deadline

12/13/2022 is the last day to withdraw from a class with a grade of a “W”. More details about the Course Schedule can be found here. It is a School’s policy that no late drops will be approved by instructors or chairs for Business School courses. Students are responsible for deciding before the deadline whether they should drop out.

Software Tools

To complete weekly assignments and the final exam, you need access to

• Microsoft Excel
• Statistical software package STATA
• Python