Teaching system for advanced statistics I. Nagy FD ČVUT, Prague J. Homolová FD ČVUT, Prague E. Suzdaleva ÚTIA AV ČR, Prague

Preliminary comment  The main topic of our interest is automatic control – in this area we do both research and teaching  The teaching system we present arose as a tool for our students to help them to absorb rather difficult advanced statistics used in the applied research

Motivation for the system  In the CTU (Czech Technical University), Prague we teach basic statistics - for undergraduate students advanced statistics - for PhD students  Our demands are To teach just what our students need To teach theory tightly connected with programs To offer a possibility for partial self-study

Construction of the system  Text as textbook and reference manual Hyperrefs  Program for computing results Database of subroutines Database of tasks  Mutual support between text and programs  Free, open and easily accessible materials

Text  A basis for teaching is a text with carefully chosen and well written content  Hyperrefs represent an easy way of passing connections in the subject on a student  The index in the text, also in hyperrefs, can serve as a handbook for quick search → LaTeX with hyperref; output *.pdf file Remark: the idea of the index is further applied even for description of the programs

Program  Must cover just the chosen range of the theory easy possibility of adding specific problems and hiding what is not needed  Must be within reach for all students → we need freely distributed easy programmable language with basis of statistics OCTAVE (SciLab)

Database of subroutines  Subroutines represent the basic equipment for building the statistical tasks  Each subroutine has its own description in *.pdf format  Collection of all descriptions with their index represents a handbook to subroutines

Database of tasks  Tasks are solutions to compact statistical problems they can illustrate the theory or solve some practical problems – should be continuously extended  Each task has a *.pdf description  All task descriptions together with the index form a handbook to tasks

Support between text and programs  The main theory has references to the descriptive parts of the programs  The descriptions give detailed explanation to the programs how to set and run them, the possible results  the text of the programs and the results of experiments yield a feedback to the theory Theory Program descriptions Program texts and results

System installation  All materials (texts and programs) are ready for download on the web  Octave can be downloaded from its homepage  User installs Octave on his computer and copies statistical programs to the specified directory

System usage  The text and the programs are separated  A student can open the main *.pdf file and read the theory. When he comes to a reference to a subroutine or a task, he can jump there and read its description. At the end of the description he can find the name of the program.  Then he can start Octave, run the program and study results of the task for pre-set initial values.  According to the recommendations in the description, a student can change the initial values or even the text of the program and run it again (comparison of results)  Finally, he can open the body of the program and study its source code. He can see the realization of the algorithm.

Conclusions  The first version of the teaching system has been accomplished and used in practice with the following results The theory must be presented very carefully and with direct connection with practical notions The usage of the programs must be demonstrated during a lecture, not only set as homework !!! Only permanent development of the system according to students‘ reactions can bring satisfactory results !!!