UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED
ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
STAT674 ¾ APPLIED DATA BASE MANAGEMENT
Spring 2013
Instructor: John D. Pesek, Jr.
227 Townsend
Hall
(302)831-1319
E-mail:
pesek@udel.edu
Web site
http://www.udel.edu/pesek
040 Smith
Hall
Office
Hours: By
appointment
Text: Required: The Little SAS Book: A Primer, 5th Edition, by Lora A. Delwiche
and Susan J. Slaughter, SAS Institute Inc., 2012.
Objective: Learn the use of data base management for
academic, research, government and business using SAS. The emphasis will be on
preparing data for analysis and creating attractive readable reports for data
summaries.
UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
GENERAL EDUCATION GOALS: The
objectives of this course align with the following General Education Goals (bolded):
Attain effective skills in (a) oral and (b) written communication,
(c) quantitative reasoning, and (d) the use of information technology – By
doing homework assignments, supportive reading and lab exercises using the SAS
software system.
Learn to think critically to solve problems – By doing homework
assignments and lab exercises using the SAS software system.
Be able to work and learn both independently and
collaboratively – By doing independent homework
assignments and lab exercises in
collaboration with a partner using the SAS software system.
Course
Requirements:
1.
In
case class is cancelled because of bad weather or other contingencies, make up
classes may be necessary. It may also be necessary to reschedule exams. Note: Since we are starting late, we will
need to hold classes on all remaining Mondays.
2.
Note
on course workload. Many of you are taking this course because of the usefulness
of SAS in the workplace. A number of employers have remarked that students who
do well in 674 are ready to do useful work the first day on the job. In order
to maintain this, I cover as much material as I can in the semester. This means
that the course will take a substantial amount of time to master. Please take this into account as you plan
your semester.
3.
On
Wednesday March 20, 2013 there will be a midterm examination for the first 75
minutes of the course. In the remainder of the class time there will be regular
class. There will also be a final at a date to be announced. Important!
The final and midterm must be taken at the scheduled time unless prior
arrangements are made. There must be adequate cause in the judgment of the instructor.
Note: Circumstances such as weather
may cause rescheduling of the exams.
Note: Plane
reservations leaving before the final date are not considered adequate cause.
Note: Attendance at a wedding is not adequate
cause for taking exams at other times. This is regardless of whether you are
getting married, you are a member of the wedding party, or you are just in
attendance.
Note: Having more than one final on the same day is
also not adequate cause.
Note:
There are many legitimate reasons such as illness and family emergency. If you have one of these, please contact the
instructor.
Note:
Students with either learning and/or physical disabilities are entitled to special
consideration according to university policy. To qualify for this consideration,
the instructor must be given official notification of the disability from the appropriate
university unit.
Both the midterm
and the final will be cumulative.
Some questions on the exam will require the demonstration of lessons
learned in class and in the homework while some will also require the
resourceful use of that knowledge. When
preparing for exams, it is important to remember that in addition to using the
skills acquired in class, it is also necessary to be able to decide which
skills are needed for a particular problem.
I often give out
practice exams. The primary purpose of the practice exam is to give you a
chance to see the general structure of my exams. There is no guarantee that the
questions will be the same or similar to questions on the practice exams.
4.
There
are a number of required assignments. Each
assignment is due on a specific date to be announced. All assignments will be graded on the basis of
content and presentation. Any assignment
that is turned in after the due date without a proper excuse will receive a
score of zero. In general assignments will be submitted using Sakai.
5.
There
will generally be one study assignment per week. The study assignment is
designed to prepare you for the laboratory exercise of the following week. Students are responsible for doing the study
assignment so that they work effectively on the lab exercise. Since you will be allowed a certain number of
sheets of supporting information for the midterm and the final, you can use the
study assignments to help prepare the sheets. If you wish, you can work with your lab
partner for the next week on the study assignment.
6.
There
will generally be at least one laboratory exercise per class. In general these will be done in pairs. The
purpose is to give you a chance to learn by doing. Credit is given for
participation. In case an exercise is missed, students with a proper excuse
will have their grade based on other work done.
Otherwise a grade of zero will be recorded. Students
are held responsible for all work covered and for meeting course deadlines. In
general laboratory exercises must be submitted using Sakai by 1:30pm of the Wednesday
after class meets. Exceptions will be announced.
Note: Missing class in order to complete work
for another class or to study for an exam in another class is not a
proper excuse.
7.
During
class students are expected to be respectful of each other and the instructor. It is especially important to respect your lab
partner. Disruptive behavior may lead to dismissal from class. Questions are welcome if they are germane to
the current topic. Other questions are
welcome when asked in private.
The beginning of the class will be a lecture introducing the handouts and other
issues important to the class. It is
important that you listen to the lecture and not start the exercise or do other
things such as answer your mail. Listening is both respectful to the instructor
and will help assure that you do not miss important information. These will become
shorter as the semester progresses and you gain more mastery with SAS.
8.
Academic
honesty is expected at all times (See the Student Guide to University Policies for complete information
on the Code of Student Conduct at http://www.udel.edu/stuguide/12-13/index.html ).
9.
The
computer labs and classroom do not allow food, coffee or beverages at
all times.
10.
Students
are expected to know and follow the computer lab rules as well as the
university's policy on responsible computer use.
11. SAS has created a program called SAS® OnDemand for Academics. This is a
new interface for learning SAS that we will likely experiment with this term.
We will continue to use Unix as principal access to SAS.
Grading
Procedure:
The final course grade will be based upon the student’s
performance on the assignments and the exams. The assignments will count 25-35 percent of the grade, the exams 65-75
percent of the grade.
Important information for listeners (official auditors). At
the University of Delaware you may take a course as a listener. Then you are
not required to take exams or turn in homework although you may do so. However,
you ARE required to attend class. If a student has listener status and has a
large number of unexcused absences, the instructor may give a grade of LW (for
listener withdrawn) instead of L (for listener). I have decided to enforce this policy. While
an LW will not affect your GPA or your graduation, prospective employers are
often concerned to see withdrawn courses on your transcript and it is best to
avoid them.
Requests
for score changes:
If you feel either an assignment or an exam deserves a
higher score, you may make a written request. The written request must be made
on a separate sheet of paper and the
assignment or exam must be attached. If
you are still not satisfied, you may make an appointment with the instructor to
discuss the matter. For Sakai
assignments, written requests may be made through the Sakai message system. In this case there will be no need to include
the assignment since I will have retained a copy.
Consultations:
Students are encouraged to visit the instructor in his
office. Students may make appointments
or drop by (In the last case the instructor may not always be available). Students are also encouraged to communicate
with the instructor using E-mail.
Announcements:
Announcements about the course will be made by e-mail. Students should pay close attention to e-mail
messages from the instructor.
Handouts:
In general handouts
will be available on Sakai in “pdf”
format. Students are expected to download and print copies to have available in
class. Some handouts may still be
provided in class. To access the handouts, go to the URL
It is important to
make every effort to print the handouts before class. The computer lab printer
will not print fast enough if everyone prints the handouts at class time.
A
tentative list of topics to be covered are:
·
Running
SAS (interactively and in batch).
·
The
SAS Output Delivery System.
·
Reading
data from files and spreadsheets into SAS data sets.
·
Computations
(changes of scale, transformation).
·
Data
selection (selecting and omitting observations).
·
Enhancing
output (variable labels and output formats).
·
Basic
data summary such as totals, means and frequencies.
·
Using
Structured Query Language within SAS and Access.
·
Transposing,
sorting, concatenating and joining data sets.
·
Outputting
data for use in other programs.
·
Using
information from statistical procedures for subsequent calculations such as computing
predictions from a regression.
·
Joining
tables and using structured queries in SQL.
·
Creating
reports using tabulate, report and other methods.
·
SAS
Macro variables and macro calls.
·
Making
graphs with SAS.
·
Running Microsoft Access.