Statistics an Overview

SFB 649 Discussion Paper 2006-024

e-Learning Statistics -A Selective Review

Wolfgang Härdle* **Sigbert Klinke*Uwe Ziegenhagen* **

* Institute for Statistics and Econometrics,Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany** C.A.S.E. – Center for Applied Statistics and Economics,Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, GermanyThis research was supported by the DeutscheForschungsgemeinschaft through the SFB 649 "Economic Risk".http://sfb649.wiwi.hu-berlin.deISSN 1860-5664SFB 649, Humboldt-Universität zu BerlinSpandauer Straße 1, D-10178 Berlin

S F B 6 4 9 E C O

N

O

M

I C R I S K B E R L I N

e-Learning Statistics – A Selective Review

Wolfgang H¨ardle

1

, Sigbert Klinke

2

, and Uwe Ziegenhagen

3

1

Institute for Statistics and Econometrics, Center for Applied Statistics andEconomics

haerdle@wiwi.hu-berlin.de

2

Institute for Statistics and Econometrics,

sigbert@wiwi.hu-berlin.de

3

Institute for Statistics and Econometrics, Center for Applied Statistics andEconomics

ziegenhagen@wiwi.hu-berlin.de

Modern computing equipment is present at schools and universities at all levelsof education.

4

In the statistical sciences computers oﬀer great opportunities toenrich the learning process by the means of e.g. animations, software integration

or on-the-ﬂy computations.

A personal review of diﬀerent e-learning platforms for statistics is done

in this paper. This review reveals facts that could be taken into account for

future e-learning platforms in statistics. One of the most striking discoveries of

our analysis is that students of statistics actually do

not

use electronic media

in the desired frequency and actually rely more on print media such as books,

copies of slides, etc.

Keywords

e-learning, electronic books, hypertext courseware, statistical software

1 Introduction

There has been a plethora of approaches to ﬁnd the ’holy grail’ of e-learning

statistics, satisfying the needs of teachers and students as well. In fact the

demand of students and teachers for e-learning must be correctly balanced as

the following example illustrates.

The aim of a student, for example, is to get immediate and fast accessto media which aid him or her in the acquisition of knowledge to pass the

exam. The teacher on the other hand is interested in improving his classes and

providing the student with knowledge for sophisticated data analyses under

4

This research was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through

the SFB 649 ’Economic Risk’.

2 Wolfgang H¨ardle, Sigbert Klinke, and Uwe Ziegenhagen

diﬀerent conditions. These aims are generally conﬂicting and hardly mappable

into a single e-learning system.

In addition each course level requires its special e-learning architecture

since the degree of computer literacy and the willingness to perform interactive

statistical learning tasks is, of course, a function of this level. At ISE/CASEthe education is based on the following elements: introductory statistics andprobability theory in the ﬁrst year, multivariate statistics and ﬁrst computa-

tional steps in the second year and specialisation in a theoretical or appliedﬁeld (e.g. ﬁnance, insurance) and research seminars in the third year. An

overview about the course structure is given in Table 1.

Table 1.

Overview of the course structure at ISE

Degree Group Class e-MediaBachelor Introduction Statistics I & II MM*StatQ & AMultivariate Statistics Multivariate Statistics I e-statXploRe Introductory Course XploReApplied Statistics Computerbased Statistics I & II eBooksData Mining/Statistical Learning ExcelNumerical Introductory CoursePrivatissimum PrivatissimumBachelor ThesisMaster Multivariate Statistics Multivariate Statistics I e-statXploRe Introductory Course XploReStatistics of Fin. Markets Statistics of Fin. Markets I & II RAdvanced Statistics Multivariate Statistics II MatlabNon- and Semiparametrics I & II MD*BookletsNumerical Introductory CourseApplied Quantitative MethodsPrivatissimum PrivatissimumMaster ThesisPhD Financial Statistics Quantitative Finance Seminar XploReAdv. Stat. Methods in Finance eBooksMathematical Statistics SeminarStatistical Tools in Finance and Insurance

During the last ten years we have developed several systems on our own, in

addition we have been involved in a variety of e-learning projects. Based on

our experience with these projects we observed that:1. Interactivity is not appreciated or understood.2.

HTML pages and screenshots of interactive examples are often printed out

for take home studies.3. Discussion groups are rarely used.4. Feedback through uploading of e.g. homework is often refused.

This might all be a consequence of technical issues (internet browser, operating

system), we do believe though that e-learning in statistics should not invest

too much optimism but rather provide a thoughtful set of really integrable

e-learning examples.

Category:	Uncategorized.
Rating:
Upload Date:	04/28/2009
Copyright:	Attribution Non-commercial
Tags:	ghayyur collection ghayyur collection (fewer)

Documents

People