Syllabus

Logistics

Lectures

Lectures will meet on MWF from 2 - 3 pm in Evans 10. Your instructor is Shobhana Murali Stoyanov.

Lectures will cover core theory and concepts, with supporting data analysis examples. To get the full benefit of lecture, it is best to read the supporting material ahead of time. When slides or R code are shown in class, they will be posted online after class. However, lectures will not always have associated slides. I will not be posting recordings of the lectures, but if you have to miss class due to an emergency or unavoidable circumstance, the class notes and text should suffice. Please do come and see me so we can review what you have missed.

Lecture attendance will be measured using occasional quizzes. There will be roughly 8-10 of these handed out in lecture throughout the semester. You need to complete five of them to get the full attendance credit.

Sections

The sections meet once a week, on Tuesdays, for two hours. The individual section times will be listed in the course calendar. Section time will be spent working on practice problems. Since some problems will involve computing you should plan to always bring your laptop. You may attend a lab for which you are not enrolled (physical space permitting). Labs will not be recorded so attendance is strongly recommended.

Your GSIs are Chuao Dong, Thomas Lee, and Toby Roemer.

Office Hours

Prof. Stoyanov and one of the GSIs will hold individual office hours each week. In addition, there will be group office hours in one of the 3rd floor classrooms in Evans, the room and hours TBA. You can go to these to get questions answered about homework or any concepts discussed in class, or help with your coding assignments.

Stat Scholars Program

The new Stat Scholars Program will be available to Stat 135 students to provide community, academic support, and more such as answers to your questions about the stat major, new directions in statistics, research being done in the stat department etc. Applications will be sent out soon, begin checking your mail next week.

Assessments

Homework Assignments

Homework assignments will be due roughly every week or so during the semester, starting in the second week. Homework will be posted to Gradescope usually by Friday, and will generally be due the following Friday at 11:59 pm. Homework will be a combination of analytical and computational exercises done “by hand” and data analysis using R. If you turn in your homework late, you will get half credit for homework that is up to 24 hours late (if you have not requested an extension), and no credit after that.

Quizzes

There will be four 50-minute quizzes to test your understanding of homework and lecture. You will take the quizzes in the CBTF (Computer-Based Testing Facility) in 200 Sutardja Dai Hall. The dates of the quizzes are: Feb 12/13, Feb 26/27, Apr 9/10, and Apr 30/May 1. You will have to schedule your quiz during the given dates at the CBTF. We do not schedule your quiz for you. Note that DSP students will also take it in the CBTF and will get their extended time. We will drop your lowest quiz score, and you may retake at most one quiz, also in the CBTF, during the week following the original quiz dates. Dates for each retake will be announced later, and you will have to fill out a form to be registered for the retake.

Exams

There will be one midterm exam and the final exam.

  • The midterm exam will be a two hour exam which will be held in the evening from 7-9 pm on Wednesday, March 11 in VLSB 2050.
  • The final exam time and day are Tuesday, May 12, 11:30 am - 2:30 pm (group 6). If you do not take the final exam, you will not pass the class.

Extra Credit Opportunities

Extra credit is assigned at the end of the semester after the grade bins have been determined. Ways to get extra credit (it will be added to your overall course percentage):

  • Diagnostic test: 0.25% for submission with some clear attempt at solving the questions.
  • EdStem: The top 5 student answerers will get up to 0.5% extra credit.

Attendance Quizzes

As stated above, there will be 8-10 attendance quizzes handed out in lecture throughout the semester. These will be graded on completion, and you will need to complete five of them to get all the attendance points.

Overall Score

Your letter grade for the course will be based a weighted average of your assessments, as follows:

  • Homework (each assignment weighted equally, drop two lowest): 15%
  • Quizzes: 15% (equally weighted, drop lowest)
  • Midterm: 25% (can be clobbered by the final)
  • Final exam: 40% or 65% (if higher than the midterm)
  • Attendance quizzes: 5%

Rough grade bins: Students earning a course average of at least 88% are guaranteed to receive an A- or better, students earning a course average of at least 75% are guaranteed a B- or better, and students earning at least 60% on their course average are guaranteed at least a C-. These bins might move down, depending on how the class does.

Important sites to bookmark

R Datahub

All coding in this class will be done in R. You may download the desktop version of RStudio if you wish, but it might be easier to use the datahub. It is up to you. Just make sure you have the latest version of R and RStudio, if you would like to download it to your laptop.

Bcourses

Important coursewide announcements will be sent out on bcourses.

Ed Discussion

I have created a Ed discussion page for this course, which you can access through the link in bCourses (so you will be logged in). This is an online forum to ask questions to fellow students and answer other students’ questions. The GSIs and I will have access to the forum and may endorse or occasionally answer questions but this is primarily a forum for students to help each other – if you need an instructor or GSI’s assistance please attend office hours. Extra credit of up to 0.5% on the final course score will be awarded to the five students who have responded to the most questions on Ed by the end of the semester (with reasonable attempts at answering the questions).

CBTF

This semester, you will be taking your quizzes in the Computer-Based Testing Facility in Sutardja Dai Hall. In order to take the test, you will have to log into the course site using your Calnet ID. I will post a practice quiz so that you can get the hang of how to do the scheduling etc. Meanwhile, take a look at the page “CBTF Getting Started for Students”.

Gradescope

Homework assignments, take-home exams, and regrade requests (see Policies section below) will be submitted through Gradescope, which you can also access through the link in bCourses (you should not add yourself to Gradescope, as the roster has already been uploaded). You can view your grades here, as I will not be creating assignments on bCourses.

Flextensions

You can request extensions of up to two days for up to two homework assignments, using this page, once assignments have been posted on Gradescope. You must make the request before the due date. If you have DSP accommodations, please send us a private message on Ed.

Academic Honesty Policy

The student community at UC Berkeley has adopted the following Honor Code: “As a member of the UC Berkeley community, I act with honesty, integrity, and respect for others.”.

My expectation is that you will adhere to this code. Beyond the importance of respecting your fellow students, acting with integrity in completing course assignments helps ensure that they achieve their purpose, which is to help you learn and develop valuable statistical understanding and skills. Homework must be done independently. If you get stuck or want to explore alternative approaches, feel free to discuss issues with students or course staff at the homework parties or on Ed. You may ask an AI tool for help understanding a concept, or figuring out a coding error (but note that the answers are not always correct), but putting assignment questions into an AI tool and then copying and pasting/paraphrasing the answers will be considered plagiarism. It is also completely negates the purpose of the homework, which is to cement and internalize concepts from the course. It will not serve you for the exam either, when you have to tackle the problems on your own. I leave it to you to decide how much you would like to use genAI tools, but please use them with caution.

Email/Ed policy

If you have a question for us, the fastest way to get a response is to post the question on Ed. If it deals with private matters, please make it a private post. If you are not comfortable writing a private post, come and see me. You can drop into office hours or make an appointment, either is fine.

Inclusivity and Accommodation

My hope is to establish a learning environment in this course that welcomes diversity of thought, perspective, and experience, and to be respectful of your individual identity as a student. I am happy to use your preferred name and/or personal pronoun. If you feel uncomfortable as a result of anything that is said in class, or if you feel that your performance in the course is being impacted by experiences outside of class, please do not hesitate to reach out to me about your concerns. If you are uncomfortable being called on during class, just let me know.

In addition, if you need accommodations for any physical, psychological, or learning disability, please speak to me after class or during office hours. Please note that you must make arrangements in a timely manner through DSP so that I can make the appropriate accommodations.

Possibility of revisions to course policies

All course policies, including assessment, are subject to change during the course of the semester in response to unforeseen events including, but not limited to, campus shutdowns due to various reasons, power outages, forest fires, and medical emergencies among members of the course staff.