N/A

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will create web-based courseware featuring software (the "Urn Sampler") built around the simulation/resampling method in statistics which focuses on the process of formulating a statistical test. This courseware will also feature a statistics text (Statistics: Making Sense of Data by Stout, Marden and Travers), self-assessment tools, a "Virtual Professor" help system, a "Virtual Statistics Consulting Lab," and entry-level spreadsheet-based statistical software. The target market is students in introductory statistics courses, who will purchase the product just as they now purchase texts. The courseware aims to leverage the latest and most standard web technologies that are anticipated to be in place at the conclusion of the project's development phase.
The plan combines the power of a web-based structure with the new resampling techniques to create a unique learning environment for statistics students. The Urn Sampler will be an open and flexible lab tool that will let teachers create exercises to supplement class lectures and other course materials. It will make it easy to teach the new compute-intensive resampling methods that have proven successful in teaching statistical inference. It addresses a diverse audience, including undergraduate and graduate students taking a required course in quantitative reasoning or statistics, students taking an undergraduate major or minor in statistics, and graduate students studying statistics and continuing education students. Additional product sales will come through purchases of parts of the web product by students whose instructors have adopted a text other than the Stout, et al. text.