News

• 2014.10.17: ALL NEW CONTENT, including lecture slides, assignments, quizzes, news, etc., will ONLY be posted on the course's connect webpage.

• 2014.10.16: Welcome to the second part of STAT447B!
  Now go visit the course's connect webpage.

Office Hours

• David: Fridays 1:00-2:00 in ESB 1043 (Department of Statistics Learning Resource Centre, ESB first floor)
  
• Will: Tuesdays 2:00-3:00 and Thursdays 3:00-4:00 in ESB 3132
• Matias: Fridays 11:00 - 12:00 in ESB 3174

Teaching Team

• Instructors:
  • Professor Will Welch (will [at] stat [dot] ubc [dot] ca) taught the first half of the course (up to and including Tuesday, October 14).
  • Professor Matias Salibian (matias [at] stat [dot] ubc [dot] ca) takes over on October 16th.
• Teaching Assistant: David Lee (david [dot] lee [at] stat [dot] ubc [dot] ca)

About the course

The course is an introduction to modern methods of regression and classification in statistical learning (machine learning). It builds upon the more classical regression and classification models you have seen in STAT 306 or equivalent. There will be a strong emphasis on applications and interpretation. We will use computer software intensively, even during lectures. Students will be encouraged to bring a laptop to class and work on the examples discussed in the lectures alongside the instructor. Participation through short in-class activities, discussion, and clicker responses is expected.

Course Texts

You will need a CLICKER, available at the bookstore. See How to Register Your Clicker to connect your clicker to the course.

"An Introduction to Statistical Learning", James, G., Witten, D., Hastie, T., and Tibshirani, R., 2013, Springer, New York
is the text you will probably find most useful. It is available online at the UBC library.

A list of reference books is provided in the course outline.

How to Register Your Clicker

1. Login to connect.ubc.ca with your CWL and click on the course
2. Choose STAT 447B (it should be available if you are registered for the course)
3. Click on the link "i>clicker registration" under "Course content"
4. Enter the information requested to register the code on the back of your clicker.

R Software

• How to install the R software on your own PC
• Basic R commands (Lab 0 from David Lee's website) Handout R code
• An Introduction to R (a fairly lengthy tutorial)
• R web site

Labs

David Lee has set up a lab website for current and past labs

Useful Links

Department of Statistics

Set of videos on how to study by Stephen L. Chew, a cognitive psychologist

Course Materials

• Lecture notes, R scripts, data sets, etc. are all available ONLY from connect.ubc.ca

Assignments and Quizzes

• Please submit your solutions electronically to connect.ubc.ca.

• Questions calling for R work will have solutions consisting of R code, results from R, and short text explanations or comments. All this can be arranged as plain text.

• Other questions require small amounts of mathematical notation. Some of you might use Microsoft Word, and some might even know Latex. Then you will be able to upload the material directly. This is not absolutely necessary, and you may scan a hand-written solution for this part of your solution if you prefer.