Time Line and Deliverables

As this is a large-scale project, we have built in a number of intermediate objectives and due dates to give your group feedback and to keep your group on track.

June 2 A proposal for what you want to study.

June 9 A detailed proposal for a pilot study.

June 23 A detailed proposal for the main study. You must include the results of the pilot study, the design of the main study and the inference you propose to do.

July 16 The project report.

The term project requires three written proposals and a written project report. The proposals and project report must be typed or word-processed. One copy of each proposal and one project report are to be submitted by the group. The proposals may be submitted prior to, but not later than, the given deadlines.

The project report must contain sections 1.-5. below. Below is a description of what I will be looking for when I grade the project report. The grade for the project report will be assigned according to the percentages indicated:

1.

Executive Summary (5%) A one page or less summary of the problem, data generation method, analysis and conclusions. Points will be assigned for conciseness, accuracy and content. (Note that this is a brief summary of items 2-5 below designed to give the essence of the report without the details.)

2.

Problem Description (10%) Why are you conducting this study? What is the question (or questions) you are trying to answer?

3.

Data Generation (20%) Is the data generation method you conducted appropriate to answering the questions you want to answer? Is it designed properly? If you conduct a sequence of data generating schemes, are the procedures you follow logical and justified by the previous results? Note that this section must contain a description of the pilot study, its results, and how those results were used in designing the main study.

4.

Analysis (50%) Is the analysis appropriate and thorough? Does it provide an answer to the questions you asked? Are needed assumptions for statistical methods satisfied? How are missing values or outliers handled? Have you gotten all that can be gotten from the data?

5.

Conclusions (15%) Appropriateness (are conclusions based on results?), clarity, justification (are arguments well supported?).

To give you an idea of what is expected in the project report, a sample project report is found at

http://www.math.wpi.edu/Course_Materials//SAS/projrep96/projrep96.html

Please note, however, that the term project is of a much greater magnitude (by a factor of, say, five) than a mini-project, and that the corresponding report will be of greater length and depth.