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=Welcome to the Statistics Open Course Library Wiki=

Spring Activity
Spring Quarter was ueber-busy with teaching, so the only thing that I was able to do was some one-person occasional brainstorming. Here are a few results: > > > > > > A spiderweb produced by VUE (a great program produced at Tuft University), used as a "mind-mapping" tool (can you read the HTML version? I am having trouble, even if it's perfectly good on my own computer)
 * This page contains a link to material created for an old Statistics class at North Seattle CC
 * [[file:stat_plan-copy.html]]
 * The outcome draft has moved to its own page

Commercial/Open Source
(yes, open source can be commercial, but it's a convenient shorthand) There is an issue as to whether to adopt commercial material as part of the //required// material in one of these courses (of course, there is no issue about commercial offering being listed as possible additional, optional, whatever). As tempting as it would be to adopt a commercial offering, at least for the "standard" part of the course (see the next point), there is a big obstacle, and it is well known to people familiar with the open source movement in software. Open source software is not the same thing as open source courses, but there are some common issue, and one is reliance on "closed source" add-ons. The problem with closed source (in our context, that would be traditionally copyrighted material, offered for free or for a low fee by commercial entities, such as publishers) is that the user has no control on the availability, pricing, and most anything for the future. I am not suggesting that publisher X will offer their material for a low fee now, since they want to stay in the loop, and then, once their stuff has been integrated in a vastly successful course, will suddenly hike the fee from $30 to $180. The point is that they could, if they wanted to. Also, traditionally copyrighted material cannot be easily tinkered with, while appropriate Creative Commons licenses allow that. All in all, regardless of how generous the terms under which commercial material may be offered, I don't think it would be wise to build the course around one of them.

Building the Course
As outlined in the (rough and preliminary) learning outcomes, the structure of the Statistics course could be something like this: The second point would be, in my opinion, the focus of the course, and of the assessments, as the first part could be easily acquired by anyone "on the job", in a pinch (software does all the work anyway, in the real world).
 * A "mechanical" part, that is a presentation of the standard tools used in statistics
 * A "critical" part, that is a discussion of the scope and limits of these tools.

It seems to me that the already available material (commercial or open) is not very strong on the second point, so it would make sense to concentrate the upcoming work on this point. However, a viable course does need the first part as well: if for no other reason because, even if the software will do the work, you still should know what the software is supposed to do. There is no doubt that the first part is covered to all possible extents in available material, so that creating brand new course material here seems a lot like reinventing the wheel - it is possible, it is even easy, but it may not be worth the trouble.

Given the previous section, I would much rather rely on an open source offering to support this first part. Is there anything out there that would fit the bill? I could (//should//) google for it, but I have a ton of students to grade over the next two weeks. If anyone has great suggestions, that would be soooo helpful!

Down to Work
Today (6/26) I am creating two new pages.
 * A page of "musings". It's my personal brainstrom on aspects of this enterprise. I have been writing these in WikiMedia format, so they are directly editable, if you would like to.

Notices of updates

 * (7/23) As you may notice, the "page of musings" has been expanded and split - for now in three parts.
 * A page collecting very rough and preliminary drafts of possible modules. I am writing them in software that allows math formulas, and several formats and looks as outputs, but, for the sake of simplicity, I am posting the stuff in PDF. It means that for any correction I will have to go back to my source file and work there, but it's easy for me, as the stuff is on my own computer. It's not as easy for you, but I'll be so happy if you can comment and help improve and move the material closer to production quality (it's very far from there right now).
 * (7/11) I am adding yet another page. For now it has an HTML page with a **rough draft** of the Syllabus. More related material to follow.
 * (7/23) Here's an item where feedback would be **very** welcome. What is your ideal format for posting //mathematical// material? I am used to PDF (with source files available for editing - sources will be in TeX or TeX-like formats, as discussed in one of musings), but I have been thinking about XHTML with MathML, especially now that I found two editors that works pretty well for this purpose. It "forces" people to use current versions of Firefox or Opera (actually, if they really want, they can also use Internet Explorer, with an add-on), but then that would be good practice anyway ;-D
 * (8/3) Besides minor corrections to the preliminary Outcomes and Syllabus files, outcomes have moved to their own page.
 * (9/12) After a long hiatus (work being done behind the scenes :) ), a first attempt at unit-level outcomes is now in the Outcomes page. Any feedback would be great,
 * (10/30) After a long hiatus, a little progress... Specifically,
 * Some minor editing, on the page of "musings" #1,2,3.
 * Also, the Modules page has been updated with my current plan, and an updated some modules.
 * Finally, some minor tweaking of the //Unit Outcomes// page.