Online Statistics Course, or Really Good Statistics Textbook?

April 5, 2004 1:15 PM

I'm looking for an online statistics course. Anyone know of a good one? A really good textbook would also work.
posted by LittleMissCranky to Education (10 answers total)

My ex had written one way back when. I couldn't find it when I looked but did find this page which lists a number of online stats textbooks and courses. I particularly liked the cute as a button Hyper-stat textbook online and this ugly but serviceable Intro Stats online textbook. Both of these are searchable.
posted by jessamyn at 1:28 PM on April 5, 2004

what kind of stats? introductory? for physical sciences? biological sciences? computing?
posted by andrew cooke at 1:58 PM on April 5, 2004

I like Wasserman's All of Statistics for a one-volume summary. It reads like course notes to an advanced undergrad statistics course, but there are some caveats:

1. It's not online, so it's only searchable via ye olde methods;
2. It's very dense, so I wouldn't make it your first and only stats book; and
3. It's both new and from Springer, which makes it fairly expensive.

Still, it's what I reach for first.
posted by amery at 2:04 PM on April 5, 2004

How to Lie with Statistics. Good stuff.
posted by five fresh fish at 2:17 PM on April 5, 2004

fff, that's an entertaining book, but it's popsci. Some concepts illustrated here and there, but not really an academic introduction. Of course. Ms. Cranky hasn't told us what she expects and requires out of statistics.
posted by Gyan at 2:41 PM on April 5, 2004

Well, three out of five prefer to start their foray into the statistical realm using a popsci book, and Ms. Cranky is three-quarters representational of the overall population.

By the way, why is it Ms. Cranky, and not a simple Ms. Cranky?
posted by five fresh fish at 5:08 PM on April 5, 2004

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions so far, everybody. I am looking particularly for biosci stuff. I took a stat course a million years ago, but I don't remember a damn thing. I want something that will help me do more of the calculations required for my research (clinical stuff).
posted by LittleMissCranky at 5:10 PM on April 5, 2004

Response by poster: fff: I was a big fan of Mr. Sneeze's Mr. Men and Little Misses. In real life, I am not little, a miss, or all that cranky. Okay, I'm a little cranky.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 5:13 PM on April 5, 2004

At one end of the spectrum:
"Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis" by John Rice is really good, and more "applied" than the title might suggest.

"Statistical Methods in Bioinformatics" and "A Machine Learning Approach to Bioinformatics" are exactly what they say; the former is a bit heavier on the math than the latter. Don't have the authors for these in front of me, but I think the titles are right.

At the other end of the spectrum, I taught a Stats/Probability class (for art students, mind you) using the afore-mentioned "How To Lie With Statistics" and "A Cartoon Guide to Statistics". Prolly not what you need for biosci but arguably a great way to get some fundamental concepts and basic calculations.
posted by freebird at 11:57 PM on April 5, 2004

I was actually referring to Gyan's use of <small>Ms<small> tagging...
posted by five fresh fish at 10:06 AM on April 6, 2004