Instructor Contact

David Rodriguez Pieper

• Email: dpieper@ccsf.edu
  • Once the course has started, it is better to use the Canvas Inbox for all communications with the professor.  This will ensure that your message does not get caught in a spam filter. If the Canvas Inbox is not available for some reason (for example, after the course ends), you may send an email to the address shown above.
• CCSF Phone: (415) 239-3365
  • I am not in the office very often to answer the phone even under normal circumstances.  Since I am teaching only online classes this semester, I will not be in the office very frequently.  Voice mail is available but it will likely not be checked, and there is no guaranteed response time for voice mail messages.  The Canvas Inbox, or email, is highly recommended if you need a timely response. If you leave a voice mail, you should also send an email message.
• Office Hours:
  
  • Office hours will be held on Wednesdays from 4:30 to 5:30 pm and Fridays from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm
    • • Exceptions:
        • No office hour on Wednesday, August 30. Substitute office hour on Monday, August 28 from 4:30 to 5:30 pm
        • No office hour on Friday, September 22. Substitute office hour on Thursday, September 21 from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm
        • No office hour on Friday, October 20. Substitute office hour on Monday, October 16 from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm
        • No office hours on college holidays: Friday, November 10 and Friday November 24
    • Office hours will begin the week of Aug. 21 and continue through Dec 19
      • No office hours on college holidays (Sept. 4, Oct. 9, Nov. 10, Nov. 23, Nov. 24)
    • Any changes will be communicated through the Canvas Inbox and posted on the Canvas Course Home Page
  • No appointments are necessary
  • All office hours will be by audio.  You can join from your computer or phone at the following link:
    • • https://ccsf-edu.zoom.us/my/ccsf.econ5
• Office Location: 628 Batmale
  • I will not have any scheduled office hours in the office on campus 
  • Do not turn any assignments in at my office because there is no guarantee when I will see them.  All assignments must be submitted on Canvas
• I will respond to all course email within 48 hours Monday-Friday, exclusive of school holidays, during the official dates of the course (August 16 to December 19). Prior to the official beginning of the course (August 16) or after the official end (December 19) I will still likely respond quickly, but there is no guarantee.
• There is no guaranteed response time for messages sent during Summer, Winter or Spring breaks.
• You can visit my CCSF instructional website outside of Canvas.  However, this site will not be used after the course starts except in the case of an emergency when Canvas is not available.

Communication Plan

• I will respond to your messages within 48 hours during the school week (Monday-Friday) excluding holidays, unless you are notified otherwise.  If you expect a reply and have not heard back from me within this timeframe, please send your message again.
• Although you can work on the online class at any time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it is not realistic to expect your professor to be online at all times.  I will try to respond quickly, but the response will not always be immediate. 
• In the vast majority of cases, if you submit your work on time, it will be reviewed and I will comment on it within three days after the due date unless you are informed otherwise.  There may be occasional situations where it takes a bit longer.  Canvas does a good job alerting me when I need to review your work, but if you haven't heard back within three days of the due date feel free to send me a reminder in case I missed it somehow.   Homework and exams submitted on time will be graded more promptly than those submitted late, as late submissions go to the end of my grading queue and there is no specific goal for how quickly late submissions will be graded.
• For most assignments and exams, if you complete the assignment at least three days before the due date  you will receive a grade and comments prior to the final due date, and this will give you a chance to modify your work to increase your score.  If you submit less than three days before the due date you may also have this opportunity depending on when I have a chance to review your work, but it is not guaranteed.  Please note that you will receive private comments on these assignments, and often they will contain hints to help you improve your score on a resubmission, so please read them carefully and let me know if you have any questions.
• I may try to contact you if I notice that you have not been keeping up with the class.  It is best to keep up as the semester goes quickly and because life happens!  But it is your responsibility to participate in the course, keep track of all deadlines and submit assignments on time.  Just because you do not hear from me personally does not mean that you are relieved from these obligations.
• You will get automated reminders from Hawkes about lesson due dates. These may appear as if they are personal communications from me, but they are actually automated notices. There is no need to respond to these messages; just make sure to do the lessons they are reminding you about.
• Office hours:  See above under Professor Contact.  Since I am only teaching online classes this semester, all office hours will be done by audio.  You will be given a link to join using Zoom.  You may use either a computer or a phone to participate.  In-person meetings will not be available.

Building Community

• The Discussion Forums give you a chance to interact with other students, so please take advantage of these.  Active participation in Discussion Forums will also be considered as potential extra credit for students who are on the border between two letter grades at the end of the semester.  There will also be some group assignments where you are required to work in a group to complete the assignment.  For other assignments, you are welcome, but not required, to work with other students.  However, you are required to complete the Midterm Exams and the Final Exam on your own with no outside assistance. This includes looking up answers posted on homework websites such as Chegg. Copying answers from these sites will result in a penalty. You may NOT use artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT or similar tools, for exams. It is easy for me to identify those answers and you will receive negative points for answers copied from these tools. You will need to agree to comply with this as a condition of participating in this course.
• Pronto is an instant messaging and livestreaming tool that is integrated with Canvas. Use of Pronto is optional for this class, but you may find it to be a good, easy-to-use tool for informal communication with your classmates. There is a smartphone app you can install for Pronto if you choose. I do not guarantee to monitor all postings on Pronto, but I may participate if I feel it would be appropriate and helpful. For formal questions where you require an answer from the professor you should use the Canvas Discussion Forums for general content or course administration questions or the Canvas Inbox for questions that are specific to your private situation.

Instructor Announcements 

I will not be posting announcements on the Announcements page in Canvas.  Instead, we will be using the Canvas Inbox for all notifications.  You will receive notices about these messages in your CCSF email, so be sure to check it regularly.  Otherwise, you may miss important information that is crucial to your success in the course. 

You may want to install the Canvas Student App on your phone so that you can set up instant notification for Canvas Inbox announcements from the professor.

Q&A Forum

• A “Syllabus or General Course Q&A" Discussion Forum is located in Module 0. This forum is for you to ask for assistance from your classmates or the instructor.
• Module 0 also contains a Technical Support Q&A Discussion Forum. Use this forum for any technical questions related to Canvas, Hawkes, Khan Academy, etc.  Please see the Course Technology section below for more information on how to get technical support.
• There are also individual discussion forums set up for each module.  These are for YOU.  You can use them to post any questions you have about the course content.  It is better to post these questions in the discussion forum rather than through a private message to the professor.  Other students probably have the same question, and can benefit from seeing the answer.  Also, other students may know the answer and will be able to provide it faster than the professor.  Of course, you are welcome to send private messages to the professor if you have a question that is truly unique to you and you want to keep it private.  But for questions about the content of the course you are highly encouraged to use the public discussion forums instead.  You can also use these to post links of interest to the course that you wish to share.
• I will check answers on the Canvas discussion forums to make sure that they are correct, and if you provide an answer to another student you will get extra credit towards class participation.
• Answers to questions posted on Pronto will likely be reviewed for accuracy, but there is no guarantee.

How to be Successful in this Course

This is an intensive 5-unit course. According to curriculum standards, this means that an average student should expect to spend an average of fifteen hours per week working on this course. Do not expect to complete all of the work for any module in one sitting. Also, the modules are divided logically based on topics, so some are a bit longer and some are a bit shorter. Keep this in mind when planning your schedule.

Although the content of the course may be new and unfamiliar to many students, the vast majority of students are able to master the content, given sufficient effort and time. The biggest challenge in this course is time management. You need to allow sufficient time to learn, practice and master the course content.

Each module is divided into numerous short videos and assignments. The advantage of this is that it allows you to work on the course whenever it is convenient and to complete a logical subset of content quickly and easily. The vast majority of the videos are less than ten minutes in length and many of the assignments on Khan Academy are only four questions. Many of the Hawkes lessons are a bit longer and the Canvas class participation assignments at the end of each module vary in length.

The downside of the course being divided into small pieces is that there are lots of these small pieces to complete. You need to make steady progress and work on the course every day. Don't expect to wait until the weekend and do everything all at once because it might begin to seem overwhelming at that point.

Here are some pointers to help you be successful:

• There is some variation, but most modules have three main sections: 1. Khan Academy videos to learn the content and short practice assignments to review what you learned in the videos, 2. Hawkes Learning lessons, each with Learn, Practice and Certify sections, and 3. Canvas Class Participation assignments. Make sure you structure your week so that you complete all three sections for each module.
• Canvas Class Participation assignments and Canvas exams will appear on the Canvas calendar, as well Hawkes Learning lessons. However, for technical reasons, the Khan Academy assignments do NOT appear on the Canvas calendar. Instead, you will need to go through each Module using the Next button to make sure you watch all the Khan Academy videos and complete all of the assignments.
• You won't know how to do the Canvas Class Participation assignments unless you complete the Khan and Hawkes sections first. Don't try to skip ahead.
• The best way to navigate the course is to go through each module using the Next button to make sure you do everything in the correct order and do not miss anything.
• Late penalties are very lenient in this course, so don't panic about that. However, it is important to keep up with the work because the course does not get easier as the semester goes on and the content builds on itself.
• The course is structured so that you can keep trying until you get things right, so if you don't get the correct answer on your first attempt do not despair!
• You get a chance to redo almost everything in this course if you need to. Try to complete the assignments as best as you can, but start early enough so that you can try again and fix your errors if necessary. This includes the exams! If you do the exam early you will get hints and a chance to take it again to bring up your score before the final deadline. This is one of the best ways to get additional points to bring your final letter grade up.
• The biggest advantage to completing assignments before the deadlines is that you get multiple chances to improve your scores. Late assignments and exams can only be submitted once.
• If you need some additional points to get the letter grade you want take advantage of some of the many opportunities for extra credit.
• Don't be afraid to ask for help. Many resources are available. See the following section for details.

How to Get Help

There are numerous ways to get assistance with the course content.  (For help on technical issues, see the Course Technology Section below.)

• Review the annotations and comments on your Canvas assignments and exams.  For File Upload assignments on Canvas the annotations can be tricky to find.  See the instructions.
• Post a question on the Q&A Discussion Forum for the appropriate module.  Other students can help you if they see it first, and your professor will also respond, and will monitor other students' answers to make sure they are correct.
• Call in to the virtual office hours.  Exact times will be determined after a poll conducted through the first week of class.  Virtual office hours will begin the second week of class.
• Embedded tutor. Some semesters we are fortunate to have an embedded tutor. Details will be announced when they become available.
• Free tutoring. Even if we do not have an embedded tutor, the CCSF Student Tutoring and Resource (STAR) Center offers free tutoring for Statistics students.  Some semesters there is separate tutoring for Econ 5, and in other semesters the tutoring is combined with Math 80 and/or Psych 5.  Check the STAR website for more details.
• Free online tutoring is available to all CCSF students.  Just click the link on the menu on the left side of the Canvas course to get started.
• Hawkes Learning offers a Tutor option for each question in the Practice section, which will give you assistance on that problem.  There is also an Explain Error option available if you get the wrong answer.  If, after looking through these, you believe that Hawkes itself has the wrong answer, you should contact Hawkes Learning Support to report the error. Let me know as well because if you find an error in Hawkes you will get extra credit for the course.
• Interact with other students through Pronto.
• Send a private message to your professor through the Canvas Inbox.
• You can also use the Send to Instructor button on Hawkes if you have a question about a specific problem where it would be helpful for me to see the exact question and numbers you are asking about.  Hawkes will then send me a screen shot so I can see exactly what you are asking about. This is more useful than just asking a general question about a Hawkes problem because in Hawkes each student gets different numbers for each question and it is difficult for me to answer questions without knowing the specific numbers you encountered.
• You can watch the videos and do the practice assignments on Khan Academy and do the Hawkes lessons as many times as you like for practice.  Use the Hint, Tutor and Solution buttons on these apps to get additional help. You can slow the pace of the videos and rewind as necessary.
• Read the textbook!  You should obtain an inexpensive used printed copy, but even if you don't have a physical copy, your Hawkes account gives you full eBook access to read it online.
• If the Khan Academy videos don't quite make things clear, or aren't your style, there are many other videos available on YouTube that cover the same material.  I have not vetted these for accuracy, but most of the ones I have looked at are pretty good.  Just do a search on YouTube for the topic you are struggling with and you will see some other perspectives. 

This course provides an introduction to the basic concepts and methods of descriptive and inferential statistical analysis.  This includes the organization of data and descriptive statistics, introductory probability theory and probability distributions, sampling distributions, estimation, hypothesis testing and linear regression.

ECON 5 counts for transfer credit to CSU and UC, but as a Math class, not as an Economics class.  The required work and difficulty will be similar to courses at CSU or UC.  You can get transfer credit to UC for only one of ECON 5, Psych 5, LALS 5 and Math 80, as these courses cover mostly the same material.

ECON 5 counts as a required course for the CCSF AA-T major in Economics and the AS-T major in Business Administration.   It also counts towards many other associate degrees for transfer at CCSF.  Please contact me or any member of the Economics faculty for more information about the AA-T major in Economics, which gives you guaranteed admission to a CSU campus as a Junior and improves your chances for admission to UC.

This course satisfies the Area A (Communication and Analytical Thinking) General Education Requirement for students pursuing an AA or AS from CCSF,  and also satisfies the CCSF Associates Degree Mathematics requirement.  It satisfies the quantitative reasoning requirements for graduation from the California State Universities (CSU GE B4) and from the University of California, satisfies IGETC Area 2 (Mathematical Concepts and Quantitative Reasoning) and satisfies major-specific requirements in Economics, Business Administration, Nursing and other majors at the California State Universities. The course has C-ID designation at the state level as Math 110--Introduction to Statistics. This course is intended for students who plan to major in Economics, Business, Social Sciences, Political Science, health care, and related disciplines. It is not intended for students who plan to major in Math.

The fact that CSU and UC consider this to be a math class should give you some idea about the type of material we will be covering.  We will use examples from economics and business, but in order to apply the concepts to these subjects we will need to do quite a bit of math, and some of the formulas will get fairly complicated.  We will not use calculus in this class, but you need to be comfortable with algebra in order to do well.  

The official course description in the CCSF Catalog is: Application of statistical methods and interpretation of statistical findings to facilitate decision-making in Economics, Business, Political Science and other Social Sciences. Data sources, types and interpretation; descriptive statistics; probability theory; discrete and continuous probability distributions; sampling distributions; confidence intervals; hypothesis tests; nonparametric statistics; simple linear regression analysis; computer-based statistical analysis.

You may want to review the full Course Outline of Record for Econ 5.

Prerequisites/corequisites/advisories

The prerequisite for this course is Intermediate Algebra, approximately equivalent to two years of high school algebra. Certain algebra skills are more important than others, so you can assess your preparation for this particular course by taking the optional Prerequisite Quiz for extra credit in Module 0. Any student who is placed into Math 80+80S or higher is eligible for ECON 5, but note that ECON 5 does not offer a support course such as Math 80S.

If you do not feel well prepared in algebra you may need to allocate extra time to spend with the tutors. If you take the Prerequisite Quiz, I will use your results to send you a customized list of videos you may want to review to help you refresh your algebra skills

No specific preparation in economics or business is required.

Student Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, a student will be able to:

1. 1. Describe data using numerical and graphical statistics.
   2. Apply probability theory to analyze events with uncertain outcomes.
   3. Make inferences about population characteristics based on sample data.

Class Meetings

This course is entirely online and does not have any on-campus meetings, nor are there any synchronous online class meetings. You work on this course on your own schedule.

However, this does not mean that the course is entirely self-paced. You will be required to do work and submit assignments every week during the semester. You can work ahead on Hawkes and Khan Academy if you like, but you will need to submit class participation assignments through Canvas every week and these, as well as the exams, cannot be done in advance except under special circumstances as arranged with your professor.

Course Web Site

Students will use the Canvas Learning Management system for assignment instructions, submitting assignments, working with classmates on group assignments, sharing resources, and viewing grades. For 24/7 help with Canvas use the chat feature found via the Help button on the menu on the far left of the Canvas screen.

We will also be making extensive use of Khan Academy and Hawkes Learning for this course. Please use Canvas as your point of entry into these external resources. That way you will be sure that you do assignments in the correct order and do not miss anything, and it will ensure that you get credit for the assignments completed on these external sites.

You can visit my CCSF instructional website outside of Canvas.  However, this site will not be used after the course starts except in the case of an emergency if Canvas is not available. More likely, though, you will get an email message in the event of this type of emergency.

Textbooks

The textbook for this course is Discovering Business Statistics, 2nd edition, by Quinton J. Nottingham and James S. Hawkes, published by Hawkes Learning Systems, Mt. Pleasant, SC, ©2023. 

Important note: We will be using the 2nd edition,  NOT the original edition published in 2013. The eBook that comes with the Hawkes homework software will be the 2nd edition. However, if you also want a paper copy of the textbook to refer to it might be cheaper to get the original edition. This should be fine because the vast majority of the content is very similar and it is simple to identify the minor changes in some chapter numbers.

You also need an access code for Hawkes Learning Systems software. The software access code is required to complete the online homework for this class. This is not optional because a large portion of the course grade is based on this homework. You will find instructions on how to create an account at Hawkes in Module 0 of the course.

The cheapest way to get access is to buy the access code directly from Hawkes Learning for $88.99. This includes free eBook access to the textbook.  You can get free temporary access to Hawkes during the first two weeks of class if you would have trouble paying right away.  Your grades will transfer over when you convert to a paid account.  But you will need to have a paid account in order to continue with the course after the first two weeks.  Once the course has started and Hawkes is linked to Canvas, the temporary account will be created automatically for you the first time you use the Hawkes Single Sign On from Canvas.  You need to convert it to a permanent paid account before the temporary account expires.

Very Important:  When you register your access code on Hawkes, be sure to use your official CCSF email address (the one ending in @mail.ccsf.edu). This is necessary so that your grades from Hawkes will automatically load into Canvas.  If you do not do this right the first time, you will need to call Hawkes support to get your email address changed.

Also, when you register for Hawkes, be sure to register for the section number in which you are enrolled at CCSF.  Check your CCSF registration to find your section number. The section numbers this semester are 831, 832 or 833.  You can also identify the correct section on Hawkes using the five-digit CRN number.

If you already purchased Hawkes access for this course in a previous semester and then were not able to complete the course for some reason, you may not need to purchase it again.  Contact either Hawkes support or me and we will try to have your account transferred to this semester's course at no charge.  This may even happen automatically when the Canvas course is synced with Hawkes.  So try logging on to Hawkes first and if you see that you are in the course for this semester, then you are fine.  Your grades may even transfer over, but you should probably do the lessons again for review unless you have a really good memory! Although this free transfer has always worked in previous semesters, there is no guarantee that it will work if you originally bought the original edition since you now need the 2nd edition. But it's worth a try.

It is highly recommended, but not required, to also get a printed copy of the textbook for reference to supplement the eBook. Sometimes it is just easier to find things in a printed copy. Used copies of the original edition of the textbook are available for as little as $22, including shipping, if you shop online, while used copies of the 2nd edition is available for $42. Although the 2nd edition is the one we are using this semester, the original edition should also work fine as a supplemental paper reference copy since you will have access to the 2nd edition via the eBook.

If you want a new printed copy of the textbook, you can buy it from the CCSF Bookstore. Be sure to buy the version where the listed price includes the access code for the software and eBook access. The bookstore charges $168.25 for this bundle. (A new copy of the textbook alone costs $102.75 at the bookstore, but if you buy this you will still need to buy the software access from Hawkes and that will end up costing you more in total.) Because this is a more expensive option, it is only recommended if you really want a brand new copy of the textbook right away or if your financial aid requires you to purchase materials through the CCSF Bookstore.  

You can also buy a new physical copy of the textbook, including the software access code and eBook access, directly from Hawkes by going to the Hawkes Yahoo Store or by calling them at 843.571.2825.  The list price is slightly cheaper than the CCSF Bookstore, but, when shipping charges are included, the cost may be similar, and if you buy at the bookstore you will get your copy faster.  However, if it is more convenient to have the materials shipped directly to your home buying from Hawkes might be a good option.

You do not need the CD that comes with the book, so don’t worry if you find a used copy without a CD. You do not need the Minitab software that is bundled with some versions of the textbook.

If you are having difficulty affording the textbook, there may be copies available to borrow from the Associated Students Bookloan program. Unfortunately, the Bookloan program cannot help with the online homework access code.

There are also copies of the original edition of the textbook on course reserve at the library for short-term borrowing. 

Optional materials:

• The Wall Street Journal has a special discount program for students. This is a good deal and it will allow you to tie the theoretical concepts we learn in class to what is going on in the real world.  It will also give you lots of good resources if you decide to do an extra credit paper (see below). 
• Darrell Huff, How to Lie with Statistics, New York:  Norton, 1954. This entertaining book points out how people use statistics to mislead others.  It is not really a how-to manual.  It is an oldie-but-goodie and will give you additional insights to the topics of this course.  It is available at the main CCSF library (not on reserve) and at the San Francisco Public Library.  Used copies can be found online for under $5.
• Grady Klein and Alan Dabney, The Cartoon Introduction to Statistics, New York:  Hill and Wang, 2013.  If you enjoy reading comic books, then you might find this to be an entertaining way to review some of the important concepts of the course.  Used copies can be found for as little as $7 online, or you can find it at the CCSF library (not on reserve) and many branches of the San Francisco Public Library.

Field Trips

There are no field trips planned for this course.

Canvas

This is a fully online course, and the structure of the course will be maintained on Canvas.

Important announcements about the class, including changes to office hours, will be posted on Canvas and delivered to your Canvas Inbox. Reminders about these announcements will be forwarded to your official CCSF email account.  It is your responsibility to check this account regularly or to forward messages from this account to an email account that you do check regularly.

Some assignments will be completed directly on Canvas.  Others will be done on Hawkes Learning or Khan Academy.  You should access Hawkes or Khan Academy through the Canvas modules.  That will help you do the tasks in the correct order and make sure you don't miss anything.

I can help with the course content and perhaps with some Canvas issues. But, if you need help uploading an assignment or with the mechanics of Canvas, contact Canvas Support using their online chat feature, accessed through the Help button on the left menu on the Canvas screen.  They can provide more informed assistance about Canvas technical problems and provide it more quickly than I would be able to do. 

Zoom Video Conferencing

There are no regularly-scheduled Zoom meetings for this course other than optional office hours.

Virtual office hours will be conducted using Zoom.  During scheduled office hours you may join the discussion at https://ccsf-edu.zoom.us/my/ccsf.econ5

 

 

Required Software and Equipment

Hawkes Learning

See the Textbook section above for more details on Hawkes Learning.

• The Hawkes Learning Student Resources page gives lots of good information about how to use Hawkes Learning and how to be successful in courses using this platform.
• Technical questions about how to use Hawkes Learning should be directed to the Hawkes Learning Support Center.
• If you have technical problems with Hawkes they are likely to be able to help you much more quickly and effectively than I could.
• Their online chat service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and I have always found them to be very helpful and quick to respond.
• Students having technical problems with Hawkes often contact me first and wait for a reply before contacting Hawkes support.  This causes unnecessary delay because I will usually just redirect you to Hawkes support anyway.  So go ahead and contact Hawkes directly with any technical issues and then keep me informed if you think the issue was significant enough that I should know about it.
• You should also contact the Hawkes Learning Support Center for any specific questions you have about lesson content or problems on Hawkes, for example if you feel that Hawkes is marking your answer wrong when it is really correct. This might be more likely to happen with the switch to the 2nd edition of the textbook.
• Since Hawkes gives different problems to each student, it is impossible for me to check every answer for accuracy. Therefore, it is better to contact Hawkes directly for these questions.
• If there is any error or bug in Hawkes, both Hawkes and I want to know about it so it can be fixed. If you find such an error, be sure to report it to Hawkes.  If they confirm the error, they will send you a thank-you gift (and fix the error!).  Also send me a copy of your correspondence with Hawkes and I will give you extra credit in the class.
• If you are unclear or confused about a specific question in Hawkes, and the online tutorials and solutions don't explain it clearly to you, feel free to send me a message using the Hawkes "Send to Instructor" button.  That way I will be able to see the details of the question you are asking about.
• For general questions about course content, use the Module Discussion Forums in Canvas, rather than Hawkes.  Because we are using Canvas as the main structure for this course, the Chat and Discussion features are not enabled on Hawkes itself, so do not try to use them. Use Canvas instead.
• You will get automatic reminder messages from Hawkes whenever a deadline for a lesson is approaching or if a lesson is past due.  These messages may appear like personal email messages from me, but they are actually generated automatically by the system.  There is no need to respond to them, but just be sure to do the lessons on time for full credit, or, if you can't, at least do them late for partial credit!
• Access to Hawkes Learning is limited in certain countries outside of the US.  If you plan to travel outside of the US during the semester, contact Hawkes support well in advance to find out if you will have limited access during your trip.  They may be able to provide you with temporary access from these countries if you contact them in advance with details.

 

Khan Academy

You must set up an account at Khan Academy.  It's free! Follow the instructions.

You can use Google or Facebook as your login, but make sure your name is formatted correctly.   If I can't find your name I won't be able to give you credit for assignments completed on Khan Academy.  If Google or Facebook sets up your name differently than what the Khan instructions require, then you can fix it in Khan Academy by going to your Profile and editing it so your Real Name shows correctly.

After setting up your account you will be asked to choose a level (choose 1st Year University) and a Course (choose Math, click on See All, and choose Statistics and Probability).

Important!  Be Sure to Join our Class on Khan Academy

After creating your account, you need to join our class. Find the Join a Class section and use the Class Code of 3G95RDKV You can copy and paste it from here into the appropriate field on Khan Academy, then click on "Join the class".

You need to join the class on Khan Academy before I can download your grades for assignments completed on Khan Academy, so do this first before starting any work. You will get an email from Khan Academy confirming that you have been assigned 250 assignments. Don't freak out! This is for the full semester, and most of them are quite short.

Note that we will be using Canvas as our main course interface.  If you try to go through the course on Khan Academy itself you will be missing lots of items and will do tasks out of order.  Therefore, please go through the course on Canvas by using the Next button at the end of each task (or use the Modules page to see a big picture overview).  The link on each item in the modules will take you to Khan Academy when required.  The Khan Academy assignments are embedded into the Canvas modules and will link you to them directly.  

You can explore videos and assignments on Khan Academy in advance if you like, but you will need to go through each module of the course on Canvas to make sure you don't miss anything.

Important:  You need to be sure you are logged in at Khan Academy whenever you complete an assignment with points attached.  Khan Academy is a free system, and anyone can complete assignments for practice as a guest without officially logging in. If you use the same browser, depending on your settings, you should remain logged on in Khan Academy from one day to the next and you will not need to log on again every time you watch a video or do a new assignment.  But be sure to check that you are logged in before you do assignments on Khan Academy to make sure you get credit.  If you see the "Login" link in the upper right corner, it means you are not logged in.  If you see your name, then you are logged in. It is not necessary to be logged in when watching videos, but it is very important that you are logged in whenever you do an assignment on Khan Academy.

The Khan Academy assignments will show on Khan Academy also, with a due date at the end of the semester.  But do not use Khan Academy as your main interface to find the tasks for this class.  You are responsible for completing the assignments as shown on Canvas, no matter what it might say on Khan Academy. 

Note that the Khan Academy assignments appear in the Canvas Modules, but do NOT appear in the Canvas calendar, for technical reasons. It is your responsibility to go through the modules using the Next button to make sure you complete all of the Khan Academy assignments.

Khan Academy has lots of bells and whistles, such as Badges, Mastery, "leveling up", etc.  You can ignore all of these, or play along with them as you wish.  They won't be used as part of ECON 5 and will not affect your grade one way or the other.

There are no late penalties for any Khan Academy assignments, so as long as you complete them before I calculate final grades at the end of the semester you will get full credit. But you will have a hard time succeeding in the course unless you keep up with the Khan Academy videos and exercises each week.

There are lots of videos and assignments on Khan Academy, but each one is quite short and most are fairly easy.  It will take time to watch all of the videos but remember that in this online class you are not spending time commuting to campus and attending in-person lectures.  The Khan Academy videos and assignments are broken into small pieces to make them easier to digest and to allow you to squeeze them in whenever you have some time available to work on the course.

Some assignments on Khan Academy are labeled as "Quizzes" or "Unit Tests".  For the purposes of ECON 5, these are just regular homework assignments and are no different from the other Khan Academy practice exercises.

If you need technical support for Khan Academy:

• Start by going to the Khan Academy Support page. You can search for technical issues, check out the FAQs and get help from other users. 
• There is also a button in the upper right corner that will allow you to Report a Problem.

 

Calculator

You probably want to use a calculator for this class as most people find a calculator easier to use than a computer for routine calculations.  The calculator app on your phone will probably be fine.  You may find it useful to have a calculator that has automatic statistical formulas built in, but you will need to learn how to use these functions yourself based on your calculator manual.  We will not cover this in class since different calculators have different instructions and we would not be able to cover all of them.  But it is not required to have a statistical calculator for this class, since we will be learning how to calculate all the formulas by hand and using the statistical tables.  At a minimum, you need a calculator that can do square roots and calculate exponents (make sure it has a key labeled x^y, y^x, or ^ ).  Ideally, your calculator should also have an e^x key.  You can get by without this key if necessary, but your life will be a bit simpler if your calculator has this key.

Various Khan Academy videos demonstrate how to use different types of calculators for different types of problems. But you need to watch carefully because Khan does not always use the same calculator model from one video to the next.

Calculators are also available to borrow from the CCSF library. See CCSF Technology Loan Program. 

Computer Access

Since this is an online course you will need to use a computer with internet access. There will be many videos to watch so you will want to have sufficient internet speed to allow you to watch streaming videos.  Technical requirements for Hawkes, Khan Academy and Canvas are very simple.  You simply need internet access and a browser.  More details on technical requirements are available for Hawkes and Canvas. You will find it much easier to do your assignments on a machine with a larger screen rather than on a phone. In addition to Hawkes and Canvas we will be watching videos and doing assignments on Khan Academy.  If you do not have the necessary computer equipment available, you can use the computer labs available at CCSF locations, such as the student computer lab in 301 Batmale.  Hours vary, so check with the labs. You may also want to investigate the CCSF Technology Loan Program.  Note, however, that you will find it much easier to do this course if you have regular access to a computer with Microsoft Office installed. Therefore, I would recommend you borrow a laptop rather than a Chromebook.

You can use a phone or tablet to access many of the videos and assignments.  Make sure you are logged in through Canvas and logged into Hawkes or Khan Academy as required.  Most Khan Academy problems work fine on a phone, but there are some that do not work well.  You can get them to work on the phone if you are patient and creative, but they are much easier to navigate on a computer screen.  I have made notes in Canvas for each Khan Academy exercise that has these types of problems, advising you to use a computer to do that exercise.  There are relatively few of these and the vast majority work fine on a phone. Hawkes is not officially supported on a phone, but some students have been able to get it to work. Be sure to have a computer available as a back-up.

Printer, Phone, Camera or Scanner

Many assignments for this class will be far easier to complete on paper. It will make your life easier if you are able to print off the assignments, complete them on paper and then upload the result to Canvas. 

You will need a way to take a picture or scan of your work and upload it to Canvas for grading.  Any phone with a camera app will work, or you can also use a digital camera or scanner.

• It is much easier for me to grade your assignments if they are submitted in PDF format. This is not an absolute requirement, but it is to your advantage to make it as easy as possible for me to grade your assignments and provide you with feedback.
• Therefore, it is highly recommended that you use software that will convert your documents into a PDF format before you upload them to Canvas.
• Adobe Scan is a free app that you can install on your smartphone. It makes it very easy to create PDF files for any paper documents.
• There are often technical problems with HEIC format files on Canvas. It is better not to submit files in that format if at all possible. DOCX and JPG file formats generally work well if you are not able to create PDF files.

You can install the Canvas app on your phone or tablet and do many of the assignments from there. 

Hawkes Learning is a bit awkward to use if you access it through Canvas on a phone, so you will probably prefer to use a computer for those assignments. Unfortunately, there is no phone app for Hawkes Learning.

Watching the videos on Khan Academy works great on a phone, and you can also complete nearly all of the Khan Academy assignments on a phone.  A few of them, however, are a bit tricky to display and complete on a phone and are better done on a computer.  I have noted those in the Canvas instructions that link to the assignments.  You can still try them on the phone if you like and most of them will eventually work if you are creative about how you display the contents and scroll around.  But these particular assignments will be completed with much less hassle on a computer.

You can also install the Khan Academy app on your phone, but I would recommend accessing everything via Canvas instead.  If you go through the Khan Academy app directly the videos and exercises will be out of order and you may miss some and do others that you really didn't need to do for this course.  It will also be harder to prepare for exams because the content won't match exactly.

Printer

Many of the Canvas assignments in this course will be easier to complete if you print them out first and use the printed copy to do your work on paper and then scan or take a photo to load the answers into Canvas.  Therefore, it will be to your advantage to have access to a printer.  It is not absolutely required, however.  If you are unable to print the assignments you can just write your answers on a blank piece of paper and upload the answers.  If you do this, be sure to label each question number clearly so I can grade your answers.  You can also use computer software to record your answers and then convert the output to a PDF file to upload to Canvas.

Required Software: Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader and Updated Browser

For some assignments you will need access to a computer with Excel installed.  Some assignments are also posted as Microsoft Word files and may not display or print correctly using other similar software.  Therefore, you should install Microsoft Office on your computer.  You can install this on your personal device for free as a CCSF student.  You are also welcome to use the computers at the CCSF computer labs, if they are open, which have Microsoft Office installed.

• Adobe Reader (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
• Update your browser (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Important Dates

• Day Class Begins: August 16, 2023
• Day Class Ends:  December 19, 2023, but assignments will be accepted for credit (with late penalties, if applicable) through January 1, 2024 at 9:00 am.
• Last Day to Add without instructor's approval (if space available): September 1, 2023
• Last Day to Drop with full refund: August 29, 2023
• Last Day to Drop without a 'W' symbol: September 1, 2023
• Last Day to Opt for Pass/No Pass: November 2, 2023
• Last Day to Drop with a W: November 2, 2023
• Final Exam Dates: December 12-19, 2023 (but you really have until 9:00 am on January 1, 2024, to complete the final exams with no penalty)

Dropping the Class

If you decide to discontinue this course, it is your responsibility to officially drop it to avoid getting no refund (after 10% of course length), a W symbol (after 20%), or a grade (after 60%). 

The instructor may drop you from the class if you do not participate, especially early in the semester if other students are trying to join, but ultimately it is your responsibility to drop if you decide not to continue in the class.

Pass‐NoPass (P/NP)

You may take this class P/NP. You must decide before the deadline, and add the option online with myRam or file the P/NP form with Admissions and Records. You will get P if you would otherwise have earned a grade of C or better.  You will get an NP if you would otherwise have earned a grade of D or F.

You must file for the P/NP option by date listed above.  If you are taking this course to prepare for transfer, or as part of a certificate program, you can probably still take the class P/NP.  Check with a counselor to be sure.

Only you have the ability to change this option.  Your professor has no control over this and has no way to change it under any circumstances.

Attendance

If you do not log-in to Canvas during the first week of classes and participate in a learning activity (beyond Module 0) by the second week of classes you may be dropped from the class. This is required in order to prevent financial aid fraud.

Please note that it is difficult to catch up in this class once you fall behind, due to the volume of work required.  So try not to fall behind.

If you just stop participating, but do not officially drop the course, then your final grade will be an FW.  This could have an impact on future registration and financial aid.

Late Policy

Late policies are very lenient for this class. It is far better to submit an assignment or exam late than not to submit it at all.

All assignments are due at 11:59 p.m. California time, on the due date.  Most of the time the official due date for Canvas assignments will be on a Friday and the official due date for Hawkes lessons will be on a Friday or Saturday. However, you automatically get a three-day extension and this extension is already included in the due dates posted on Canvas and on Hawkes.  You do not need to ask for this extension or provide any reasons.  This will give you until the following Monday to complete Canvas assignments with no penalty (there will be adjustments made when Friday and/or Monday is an official college holiday or if there was an exam due the previous week) and until the following Monday or Tuesday to complete Hawkes lessons with no penalty. However, because everyone is given the automatic three-day extension, please do not ask for additional extensions for any reason.  If you plan based on finishing each module on Friday or Saturday, then you will have the three-day extension to use in case of emergency.  If you decide to plan based on finishing the following Monday or Tuesday, then you will have already used your extension and you cannot ask for another one no matter what may happen.  So try not to put things off to the last minute of the extension!

Canvas Class Participation Practice Assignments (including those labeled as “Quizzes”):  Officially, these assignments are due on Friday for each module, unless Friday is a college holiday.  You automatically get a three-day grace period, which means you have until Monday night to submit with no penalty.  The due dates shown on Canvas already include the automatic three-day extension, so they generally show as due on Mondays or Tuesdays (with some exceptions). On the morning after this final due date shown on Canvas, the answers will be available to students who have submitted the assignment.  If Friday and/or Monday is a college holiday, adjustments will be made to this schedule, so watch the announcements in your Canvas Inbox and due dates posted on Canvas.  Group assignments will be given an extra couple of days to allow you to coordinate within your groups.  If you submit your Canvas assignments on time they will be graded promptly and if you submit them early they will be graded with hints so you can submit again for a better grade if you want.  On time submissions for Canvas assignments will receive at least half of the points as class participation credit even if your answers are not correct or you do not answer all of the questions (as long as you demonstrate that you made a reasonable effort).  If you submit your Canvas assignments late then you will only get one chance to submit and they will be graded more slowly. On-time assignments always get priority for grading. If you submit late you will not get class participation credit for just submitting and you will only get one chance to submit the assignment.  For late submissions your score will be based entirely on the number of correct answers and you will be expected to check the answers yourself against the answer key to find out what you did wrong.

Canvas Exams (labeled as “Exams”): See the individual deadlines and late policies for each exam.  In general, you can take each exam three times and your average score will count, as long as you complete each attempt before the deadline.  This will give you a chance to improve your score because you will know whether or not your answers are correct and you will only need to fix the questions you missed, which will allow your average score to go up.  After the official deadline has passed you can still take the exam, but you will only get one attempt and will not be able to improve your score.  The automatic three-day extensions have already been built into the exam due dates.  You should try to complete them three days in advance of the posted date if possible to be sure you will have time to resubmit if necessary to bring your grade up. There may be exceptions to this general schedule for individual exams, so look at Canvas for details each time.

Khan Academy Assignments:  There are no late penalties for any Khan Academy assignments.  You will get full credit as long as you complete them before I calculate the final grades at the end of the semester.  But keep up with them throughout the semester--do not wait and expect to do them all at the end!

Hawkes Learning Lessons:  Each Hawkes Learning lesson certification is worth 40 points if it is submitted by the due date as shown on Hawkes.  The due date posted on Hawkes already includes the automatic three-day extension, so if you Certify by the end of that day you will still get the full 40 points.  If you Certify the lesson on Hawkes after the posted due date you will lose 1 point for each day it is late for the first 19 days.  Lessons you Certify more than 20 days late will still earn 20 points as long as you Certify before I calculate the grades at the end of the semester.  In other words, the due dates on Hawkes do include the automatic three-day extension but you can always earn partial credit if you complete them after that date. Hawkes lessons that are late are still eligible for at least half the points as long as you complete them by the end of the semester.

Methods of Evaluation

Each week you will complete graded assignments. Nearly every module contains assignments on Canvas, Khan Academy and Hawkes Learning, and you need to complete the assignments on all three platforms. All of these assignments can be completed after watching the videos, reading the textbook assignments and the summaries in the content modules, and doing the Learn and Practice sections of each Hawkes lesson. 

Exams

There will be four online Midterm Exams, each covering approximately one quarter of the content in the course, plus a comprehensive Final Exam. 

If any exam is missed, a zero will be recorded as the score. It is your responsibility to take the online exams by the due date, but it is better to do the exam late than to skip it entirely.

Since this is an online class, the exams will be open book and open note.  However, you are expected to work on the exams yourself without any outside assistance (this includes looking up answers posted on websites such as Chegg or using any artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT), and you will be asked to confirm this. Points will be deducted if you do not follow this policy. It is quite obvious to me when students copy their answers from these sources and you also won't learn anything if you just copy the answer.

However, if you complete your first attempt of an exam several days before the due date, I will try to grade it and give you hints so you can submit again for a higher grade before the due date. You can submit exams up to three times before the due date and your score will be the average of the scores on your submissions. If you submit for the first time after the due date you will get no hints and only one submission and that will be the score that counts.

Please note Canvas uses the term "Quiz" for multiple types of assignments.  Some of the regular class participation homework and extra credit assignments are set up as "quizzes" on Canvas, but they count towards Canvas Class Participation in your grade.  Other "quizzes" are really Midterm Exams or the Final Exam.  It should be clear which ones are which, but pay attention.

Also, note that some of the assignments on Khan Academy are called "Quizzes" and "Unit Tests" but all of the Khan Academy assignments are treated as part of Khan Academy Homework in calculating your final grade, no matter what they may be called on Khan Academy itself.

Similarly, the Hawkes Learning Lessons are the main required homework on Hawkes, but there are also "WebTests" which are not really tests, but are optional extra credit assignments.

Grading Policy

Visit the “Grades” in Canvas to keep track of your grades, but note the details for each grading category below when interpreting these grades.

There are a total of 10,000 points available in this class if you do all of the required assignments perfectly, but do not do any extra credit.

  How do I view my grades, teacher comments, and an assignment rubric as a student?

Canvas is a bit odd in how it displays grades during the semester.  For some reason, it shows different percentage totals to students and instructors.  Instructor totals seem to be based on the entire course, while student totals only reflect what has been assigned and completed so far.  So even though the individual grades are accurate, the percentages do not match during the middle of the semester.

In this course the percentage grades shown on Canvas can be very misleading--especially in how they incorporate extra credit!  Please ignore the percentage grades on Canvas because the only thing that matters at the end of the semester is your total number of points. For example, it may be that after you complete an extra credit assignment your point total will go up but your percentage grade on Canvas will go down. Ignore the percentage because only the point total will matter for your final grade in the course.

At the end of the semester, grades will be assigned as follows: 

Grading

Letter Grade	Percent	Points
A	Ignore the percentage grades shown on Canvas!	9000 points or more
B	Ignore the percentage grades shown on Canvas!	8000 to 8999 points
C	Ignore the percentage grades shown on Canvas!	7000 to 7999 points
D	Ignore the percentage grades shown on Canvas!	5000 to 6999 points
F or FW	Ignore the percentage grades shown on Canvas!	0 to 4999 points

If taking Pass/No Pass you need at least 7000 of the total class points to pass the class.

If you have actively participated in the class through Discussion Forums and submitted and revised your assignments on time and you are just a bit short of the number of points for the next highest letter grade I may decide to give you extra credit for class participation and bump your letter grade up.  If you have only completed the required assignments and have not otherwise actively contributed to the class, then you will strictly need the stated number of points or higher in order to get a particular letter grade, particularly if you have submitted more than a few late assignments.

A "D" grade means that the unit credits will count towards CCSF graduation requirements, but it may or may not count as transfer credit or allow you to use this course as a prerequisite for other courses, depending on the policies of the institution you transfer to.  If you receive a "D" you are allowed to take the course again to earn a higher grade, subject to course repetition policies.

An “F” grade indicates that a student participated in and completed the course but failed to master the course curriculum.

An “FW” grade indicates the student stopped participating in the class, but did not officially withdraw.  Please check with your counselor and financial aid advisor about possible implications of the FW grade on residency and financial aid status.

Grading Categories and Details

Assignments are weighted by group:

Weights of Grade Categories

Category	Weight
Khan Academy Assignments	8.43%
Class Participation Assignments Done on Canvas	10.37%
Hawkes	21.2%
Midterm Exams	40%
Final Exam	20%
Extra Credit Done Via Canvas	1.31%
Hawkes Extra Credit	1.63%
Extra Credit Paper	5%
Total	107.94%

 

Khan Academy Assignments

There are many short, generally fairly easy, practice assignments to complete on Khan Academy.  Most of these are called "Practice" but others are called "Quizzes" or "Unit Tests."  All three of these are treated the same way in this class for grading purposes, and count towards your Khan Academy grade.  Each question in the "Practice," "Quiz," or "Unit Test" counts as one point towards your final grade in the class.  If you get the question right, you get one point.  If you get it wrong, you get zero points. There are a total of 250 Khan Academy assignments distributed over the 17 core modules of the Canvas course.

You can take each "Practice," "Quiz," or "Unit Test" as many times as you like until you get a perfect score, and it is highly recommended that you do this.

There are also "Articles" on Khan Academy that combine content explanations with practice questions.  Each of these "Articles" is worth one point, and the answers are shown as you go along.  For these "Articles" you get one point per article (not per question) and you get the point whether your answers are right or wrong, as long as you complete the article.

In total, the total number of points included in required Khan Academy "Practice," "Quizzes," "Unit Tests," and "Articles" adds up to 843 out of the total 10,000 in the course.  Therefore, this amounts to 8.43% of your final grade.

There are also Extra Credit "Practice," "Quizzes," and "Unit Tests" on Khan Academy.  These are clearly marked in the Canvas Module as Optional Extra Credit.  You may need to watch additional videos to prepare for doing these assignments.  Once again, each question is worth one point if you get it right, and you can do each assignment as many times as you like to bring up your score.  In total, these extra credit assignments are worth a maximum of 70 points.  So even though 843 is the maximum number of points you can earn from Khan Academy doing the required assignments, it is actually possible to earn 843 + 70 = 913 points from Khan Academy towards the final grade.  Any points over 843 would be used to compensate for missing points in other categories.

Please use the Canvas Modules to access the Khan Academy assignments.  If you access the material directly through Khan Academy you will end up doing things in the wrong order and you may miss assignments or do extraneous assignments that are not part of this course. Khan Academy assignments are not shown on the Canvas Calendar, so don't count on that to remind you to do them.

I just noticed that over the summer Khan Academy made an update to their screens and this may actually be causing a bit of confusion for our course.

After you finish an assignment, "quiz" or "unit test" on Khan Academy, there are some buttons in the lower right corner saying things like "Up next" or "Next assignment". You might be tempted to click these buttons to continue with the course.

The problem with this is that the course on Khan Academy is arranged in a different order than our course on Canvas. So if you use these buttons you may be taken to a lesson that we cover in another module, or one that we don't cover in ECON 5 at all.

So, after you complete each assignment on Khan Academy, go back to the Canvas Module and use the Next Button on Canvas to navigate through the course. This will take you to each Khan Academy assignment in the correct order.

Sorry for any confusion this new "feature" on Khan Academy might have caused.

(By the way, if you did happen to go ahead and do a Khan Academy lesson out of order, don't worry about it. No harm will come and your points will still count if it is an assignment that we will cover later in the course, so you'll just be a bit ahead.)

There are no points earned just for watching Khan Academy videos.  If you prefer to learn by reading the textbook you are not required to watch the videos.  But many students find it easier to learn by having someone explain the concepts and watching someone do sample problems, rather than just reading about it in the book.  Even if you choose not to watch all of the Khan Academy videos, you are still responsible for completing all of the Khan Academy assignments.

One advantage of the videos compared to a standard lecture is that you can speed up or slow down the pace based on your understanding of the material.  You can also rewind and watch difficult sections as many times as you like, or skip over topics that you are already very familiar with.  They are always available for you to go back and review if you forget the details later in the semester.  This is very handy in statistics because the material keeps building on itself throughout the semester, and you may need to go back and refer to something you learned earlier.

As mentioned in the Late Penalty section, there are no late penalties for Khan Academy assignments.  Any assignments completed by the end of the semester when I calculate the final grades will count for full credit.  You can go back and redo them as many times as you like to bring your scores up.

Canvas will not usually show your current scores for Khan Academy.  The process to load the scores from Khan Academy onto Canvas is tedious.  It will be done at least four times a semester, once after each Midterm Exam, plus maybe one or two additional times. I will notify you each time I transfer points from Khan Academy to Canvas so that you can see how you are doing.  

Unfortunately, Khan doesn't make it easy for you to see your points on Khan Academy itself either. You need to go to any Khan assignment (not a video) in Canvas and then, once you are in Khan, click on your name in the upper right corner. Then click on the Learner Home, then on Assignments in the menu on the left. You will see all of the assignments for the course, but they are in a different order than we are doing them for this class. You have to click on Next many times to find everything. The far right corner shows you the status. It shows which assignments you have Completed. Articles are worth one point, but the points for the others vary as shown in Canvas. You will earn one point for Completed Articles when the grades are downloaded to Canvas.

You can also see your recent activity by clicking on Progress on the left menu on the Learner Home. This shows you the number correct and number of possible points for each assignment in Khan Academy.

Also, note that Khan Academy has many motivational tools, such as Badges, Mastery, Leveling Up, etc., etc.  You can ignore all of these for the purposes of ECON 5, as they do not affect your grade one way or the other.  But you are welcome to track them on Khan Academy if you like.

Class Participation Assignments Done on Canvas

Every module contains Class Participation Assignments that you will submit on Canvas.  In most cases you will print off a paper assignment and then upload a completed copy into Canvas for grading.  In other cases they will take the form of Discussion Forum postings/responses or Canvas Quizzes.  Most of them can be done individually or in groups, but some must be done in groups.  If you work with other students on an assignment that is not officially a group assignment, then each student must upload an answer to get credit.

Most of these assignments are worth 50 points, but others are worth different numbers of points.  Altogether, the Canvas assignments add up to a total of 1037 points, which corresponds to 10.37% of your final grade.

In most, but not all, of these assignments, you will get approximately half the points (for class participation) just for submitting a completed assignment on time, even if your answers are all wrong or you did not quite finish all the questions (as long as it is clear that you made a real effort--you won't get these class participation points for just writing down random answers that have nothing to do with the question!).  So be sure to submit a response by the deadline, even if you aren't sure about your answers or you didn't have time to finish everything.

If you submit your response by Friday before the assignment is due, I will grade your submission and make comments and give you hints in time for you to submit again before the final deadline (usually on Monday).  You can submit as many times as you need to and your highest score will count.  I will try to grade each submission and make comments no matter when you submit it, but I can only guarantee that submissions received by Friday will be graded by Sunday so that you will have Monday to correct and resubmit if you like.

• Be sure to review the annotations and comments on your graded Canvas assignments and exams.  For File Upload assignments on Canvas the annotations can be tricky to find.  See the instructions.

Answer keys will be made available on Tuesdays (or the day after the final assignment due date, including the automatic three-day extension).  You won't have access to the answer keys until after you submit your assignment, so you can still submit late (but see the Late Policy above for more details).

 Hawkes

There are fifty-seven required lessons to be completed on Hawkes Learning, and nearly every module has one or more Hawkes lessons to complete.  Each of the 57 Hawkes Learning lessons is worth 40 points, but you get four free lessons, so there are a total of 2120 points, or 21.2% of your final grade, available from these Hawkes lessons. If you complete 53 lessons by the due dates you will get the full score. You should plan to complete all 57, however. Any extra points you earn will make for any late penalty deductions or will count as extra credit.

To earn these points, you must Certify that you have achieved Mastery of the content of that lesson.  The Certify section of each lesson contains a number of questions, along with a threshold of how many correct answers are required in order to Certify.  A Heart symbol in the upper right corner of the Hawkes page shows how many "lives" you have left on that attempt.  If you miss a question you will have a choice to try a similar question, or to give up one of your lives.  If you finish all the questions without using up all of your lives you will earn the Certify points for that lesson.  If you use up all of your lives before finishing the lesson, then you will need to go back and Practice some more and try the Certify again from the beginning.

You can do the Certify section as many times as you like until you achieve Mastery.  There is no partial result.  Either you achieve Mastery or you don't for each lesson.  If you attempt Certify twice without passing you will be required to do the Practice section again before your next attempt to Certify.

You will receive partial credit if you complete the Certify after the deadline.  See the Late Policy section for details on how many points you will receive if you Certify after the deadline.

Hawkes grades are automatically loaded onto Canvas once a day around midnight.  So you will not see your points on Canvas immediately, but you should see them the day after you finish any Hawkes assignment.  You are always able to see your total Hawkes points immediately on the Hawkes platform itself.

At the end of the semester, all the Hawkes points will be added together, with a target of 2120 for the regular lessons plus an addition 160 possible if you also complete your "free" lessons, plus a maximum of 163 extra credit points for the Bonus WebTests, for a total of 2443 possible points (see the section below on Hawkes Extra Credit for more details about the Bonus WebTests).   Hawkes lessons (excluding extra credit) are worth a total of 21.2% of your final course grade.  Any points over 2120 due to extra credit will just give you additional points to be included in your final letter grade calculation.

 Midterm Exams

There will be four midterm exams, each covering approximately one quarter of the material for the course.  

• Midterm Exam 1:  Modules 1 to 5
• Midterm Exam 2:  Modules 6 to 9
• Midterm Exam 3:  Modules 10 to 13
• Midterm Exam 4:  Modules 14 to 17

Each Midterm Exam is worth 1000 points, so each one is worth 10% of your final grade in the course.  The four midterm exams together account for 4000 points, or 40% of your final grade.

The Midterm Exams will appear as "Quizzes" on Canvas and will be done online.  For each exam there will be some questions where you will need to write the answers on paper, or put them into an external file, and then upload the file on Canvas.

Many of the questions on the midterm exams will be graded automatically by Canvas, but there are some that will require manual grading.  Therefore, the original score you receive will not be your final score.  You will need to wait for the manual grading to be completed before knowing your final score on the exam.

In addition, most of the midterm exams will have extra credit questions.  The way Canvas works, these extra credit questions all need to be graded manually, so you will need to wait for that to happen before you know your extra credit points.

Because of the extra credit questions, it is possible to score more than 4000 points on the midterm exams in total.  If you do, then those extra points will apply towards your final grade calculation.

You will get three attempts on each exam if you complete them before the deadline.  If you attempt the exam more than once, your final grade for the exam will be the average of your scores.

If you complete the exam three days or more before the deadline, I will commit to do the manual grading and give you hints on how to correct your answers, if necessary, in time for you to attempt the exam again before the deadline.  If your attempt is submitted less than three days before the deadline, I will still try to do this, but there is no guarantee that you will see the feedback in time to do another attempt.

Keep track of your answers and which questions you got right and wrong because that way you will not need to spend time rethinking the answers you got right the first time.  Just put in the same answer again.

Each attempt on the exam will have a time limit, so pay close attention to that.

If your first attempt is submitted after the deadline, then you will only get one attempt and will not be able to correct your answers.

Remember that you are allowed to work in groups on other homework assignments, but the exams are an individual effort and you must certify that you did the work yourself without outside assistance. You may not copy answers from external websites such as Chegg or from artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT. If you do, you will lose points. It is quite obvious when students copy from these sources, aside from the fact that you won't learn anything by just copying and pasting.

The instructions will vary from one exam to the next, so be sure to read them carefully.  Pay especially close attention to situations where multiple questions are based on the same data.

Final Exam

There will be a comprehensive Final Exam as part of Module 18.  This exam covers the entire course, Modules 1 to 17, and is worth 2000 points, or 20% of your final grade in the course.

The procedure for the Final Exam will be similar to the midterm exams, so see the previous section for details.

There will be extra credit questions on the Final Exam, so it will be possible to score more than 2000 points.  If you do, the extra points will be applied towards your point total for the final grade calculation.

Extra Credit Done Via Canvas

There will be some extra credit assignments available that will be submitted via Canvas. These will be worth at least 131 extra credit points and could amount to an additional 1.31% or more of your final grade, but you can score a full 100% of the standard course points without completing any of these assignments.  This is why it appears as 1.31% in the chart above, and the total available points adds up to more than 100%.  This is a quirk in the way Canvas calculates grades. 

Hawkes Extra Credit

There are also extra credit opportunities available on Hawkes.  These are not referred to as "Lessons" on Hawkes, but rather as "WebTests."  You will see on Hawkes that they appear in a different tab, and are labeled as "Bonus."  

The Extra Credit Bonus WebTests on Hawkes work differently than the standard lessons.  In most cases, you will need to do additional Learn sections of the Hawkes course, or read additional textbook sections that are not assigned as part of the standard course, in order to prepare for these assignments.  Your extra credit is based on how many answers you get right, with one point for each correct answer.  There are a total of 8 of these WebTests with a total of 163 questions, so the maximum number of extra credit points is 163, or 1.63% of your final grade.

On each WebTest you will get three attempts, and your highest score is the one that counts.  The questions may be different each time, so there is no guarantee that your score will go up if you do it again, but it probably will because you will be familiar with the types of questions asked.  In any case, your highest score is the one that will count, no matter which attempt it is associated with.

During the semester, these extra credit points will be stored in a separate category on Canvas, and you will see your points for each of these WebTests on Canvas as a separate grade.  This is why it is included in the Grade Categories as a separate category worth 1.63% of your grade.  Again, it is possible to earn the full 10,000 points in the class without doing any of these WebTests, so that is why the total adds up to more than 100%.

At the end of the semester, all the Hawkes points will be added together, with a target of 2120 for the regular lessons plus 160 possible points for the "free" lessons plus a maximum of 163 for the Bonus WebTests, for a total of 2443 possible points.  Anything over 2120 due to extra credit will just give you additional points to be included in your final letter grade calculation.

Hawkes grades are loaded onto Canvas once a day around midnight.  So you will not see your points on Canvas immediately, but you should see them the day after you finish any Hawkes assignment.  You are always able to see your total Hawkes points immediately on the Hawkes platform itself.

 Extra Credit Paper

One short paper is optional and you can earn up to 500 additional points towards your final course grade as extra credit.   This could amount to as much as 5% of your final grade in the course.  It is shown as a separate grading category on Canvas, which is why the total of all the grading categories adds up to over 100%.  You can earn a perfect 100% in the course without completing this optional paper.  

If you choose to do the optional extra credit paper:

Locate the Extra Credit Paper Module to find the details and submit your paper on Canvas.

Find a recent article (published after June 1, 2023) from a newspaper, magazine or academic journal (either print or online) about economics, business or social science, which makes use of some of the statistical concepts you have learned in this course. Then write a short analysis explaining how what you learned in this course applies to what is discussed in the article.   Good sources for articles would be The Wall Street Journal, Business Week or The Economist, but you can also find applicable articles in the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Times, or other general newspapers or news magazines.

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent program for students described earlier in this syllabus.  You can also access The Wall Street Journal for free at the CCSF library.  Research librarians at the library are available to help you search for an appropriate article.

Be sure that your analysis addresses the following topics:

• What statistical techniques were used
• Why were they used
• What was good and bad about how the statistical techniques were used
• What you would have done differently if you were doing the study

Do not just summarize the article.  You will attach the article, or a link to it, so I can read it myself.  Instead, your paper must analyze the article and demonstrate what you have learned in this course.

I expect papers to be about two pages, typed, but it is OK if they are somewhat shorter or longer.  The important thing is to communicate something, not to fill up a certain amount of space.  It is the quality that counts, not the length.  Your paper will be graded on how well you explain how the concepts of the course apply to a real-world situation, your analysis, and also the clarity of your writing.

We use lots of graphs in statistics and economics, but for some reason students are often afraid to use graphs in their papers, and very few include them.  You should not be afraid to include some graphs and it will probably result in a better grade.  You do not need to do the graphs on the computer (although it is fine if you do).  It is perfectly appropriate to include a hand-drawn graph as part of your paper.  Note that if you copy the graph from the textbook or another publication you need to provide a reference stating the source of the graph.  Do not try to claim someone else’s graph as your own work (see the paragraph on plagiarism below for more details).

Submit a copy of, or a link to, the original article that you are analyzing along with your paper, and also include references for any other sources you may have used in addition to the article you analyzed. (Note that no other sources are required, but if you use them you must provide references. It is not necessary to list the textbook as a reference.)

If you are not sure about your ability to write a college-level paper you may want to take advantage of the assistance of The English Lab in R205 (second floor of the Rosenberg Library).  

The paper is due any time up to the last day of the course. If you hand it in at least two weeks before the official last day of final exams as shown on the college calendar--and you receive less than full credit--you will have a chance to improve it and resubmit it for up to half of the additional points you missed the first time.

 

The extra credit paper will add a maximum of 500 points to your grade, based on the following schedule:

Grade	Original Points	Maximum Points on Revised Paper
A+	500	N/A
A	400	450
B	300	400
C	200	350
D	100	300
F	0	250

NOTE:  Any plagiarism on the extra credit paper will result in negative points.  In other words, your regular grade will go down if you hand in an extra credit paper that is plagiarized.  See the Standards of Conduct section for more information about plagiarism.

Miscellaneous Extra Credit

There is also a miscellaneous Extra Credit grade category on Canvas that is used to record any miscellaneous extra credit you earn, for example by reporting an error in the course so it can be fixed. There may be additional miscellaneous extra credit assignments posted on Canvas which will allow you to earn additional points.

If you need accommodations because of a disability, or have emergency medical information to share with me, or need other special arrangements please let me know as soon as possible.

Students seeking disability related accommodations need to contact Disabled Students Programs and Services located in Room 323 of the Rosenberg Library (415) 452-5481. Please see the DSPS website  for more information and alternate locations.  All accommodations will be coordinated with DSPS.

Students who require accommodations must inform the instructor in advance and provide documentation which states the specific type of accommodation required. It is the student’s responsibility to give advance notice to the instructor and to coordinate exam times and location with DSPS.

Students who register in CCSF classes are required to abide by the CCSF Student Code of Conduct.. Violation of the code is basis for referral to the Student Conduct Coordinator or dismissal from class or from the College. See the Office of Student Affairs.

Collaborating on or copying of exams in whole or in part will be considered an act of academic dishonesty and result in a grade of 0 for that exam.  If another student copies from you, I will have no way of knowing who wrote the answer and who copied, so you will both receive a 0.  So don't let anyone else copy from you!  Copying on Extra Credit questions will result in a negative extra credit score.

I can easily identify answers that are copied from online sites such as Chegg or artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT and copying from these sources will also result in the same penalties.

You are allowed to work together on Canvas Class Participation assignments, but each student should submit their own copy of the final product for grading (except for clearly-marked Group Assignments).

Khan Academy and Hawkes Learning assign different problems to each student, so you will have to do your own work.  Feel free to consult with other students about how to answer the questions, but you won't be able to simply copy the answers from another student.

If you choose to do the Extra Credit Term Paper, make sure that you follow rules to avoid plagiarism and to appropriately cite the source of your information.  Plagiarism and cheating are also not allowed on extra credit assignments and will be reported to college authorities and will be subject to similar penalties.

See these links on Plagiarism:

Encourage Academic Integrity and Prevent Plagiarism 

Citing Information Sources 

Equal Opportunity

The San Francisco Community College District is committed to the principles of equal opportunity, and the prevention of discrimination and harassment in any program or activity of the District on the basis of race, color, ancestry, national origin, ethnic group identification, religion, age, gender, gender identity, marital status, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, disability or AIDS/HIV status, medical conditions, or status as Vietnam-era veteran, or on the basis of these perceived characteristics, or based on association with a person or group with one or more of these actual or perceived characteristics.

If you believe you have been subject to discrimination, please contact Mildred Otis in Human Resources.

Sexual Violence on Campus: Prevent Violence

The CCSF District policy on sexual assault applies to all members of the campus community, including students, faculty, staff, administrators, visitors, and invitees of the College. Any sexual assault or physical abuse, including, but not limited to, rape, as defined by California Penal Code, whether committed by an employee, student, or member of the public, occurring on District property, or on an off-campus site or facility maintained by the District, or on grounds or facilities maintained by a student organization, is a violation of the District policy and state regulations, and is subject to all applicable punishment, including criminal procedures and employee or student discipline procedures. (See also AP 5500, Standards of Student Conduct.) It is also District policy to actively prevent rape and sexual assault. The District maintains a zero-tolerance standard concerning sexual violence. For further information, please contact CCSF Student Health Services, (415) 239-3110 or CCSF Campus Police Department, (415) 239-3200.

Safe Learning Environment Policy

Students at City College of San Francisco have the right to an environment in which there is freedom to learn. The College believes that each student has an earnest purpose and that he/she will adhere to acceptable standards of personal conduct. We believe students deserve a safe, civil and respectful environment that will enable them to reach their full potential. To this end we expect students to assist us in this mission. Promptly report any concerns or observations to your instructor, Dean of Students or appropriate authorities. I will not tolerate any actions that constitute discrimination, threats, bullying or harassment in an online setting. Such actions may be subject to discipline, being dropped from class or expulsion from the college.

Netiquette

I recommend that students enrolled in the course stick to communication within the Canvas framework as much as possible. Do not abuse on-line personal or group forums intended for learning. Follow Netiquette principles and guidelines.

Student Expectations 

Note that this course counts for 5 units of credit.  You should expect that this course will cover nearly twice as much material as a typical 3-unit course and will take nearly twice as much time every week for homework and study. 

The official estimate for a 5 unit course held with in-person lectures is that students will spend five hours a week in class and an average of ten hours a week outside of class studying and working on assignments, for a total of fifteen hours per week.  Since this is an online class, you will not spend any time in class, but you should still expect to spend a total of around fifteen hours per week working on this course. This estimate is for an average student who earns a C in the course during a typical week, so your experience may be different and may vary from week to week.  There will be several different types of assignments and homework required for this course.  Please plan your schedule accordingly.  Tutoring schedules will be communicated once they are set, and you may want to arrange your schedule so you can take advantage of the free tutoring opportunities.

This class starts out fairly easy, but gets progressively harder as the semester goes on.  You will be using almost everything you learn early in the semester again later in the semester as the material builds upon itself.  Therefore, do not get overconfident based on the first part of the course and think that you will be able to sail through the rest of the course without hard work.  You will need to remember the earlier material in order to be successful in the later parts of the course.

If you fall behind it will be very challenging to catch up due to the volume of work required.  Therefore, try to plan to set aside some time every day to work on this course.  It might be theoretically possible to do all the work for each module over the weekend, but it means that your entire weekend would be pretty much dedicated to this course.

List of Assignments

Note to students: the list of assignments generated automatically by Canvas does not include all course content. To view all course content and assignments that are available to work on, go to Modules. 

The complete course schedule will be published as soon as it is available and will be accurate at the time of publication, but is subject to change as the semester progresses.