Course Organization

Instructor: Rollin Brant
Office hours: Mon/Wed 12:30-1:30, ESB 3108

Course structure:

There will be assigned readings from the course textbooks posted each Wednesday for discussion the following week. Each week's material will be accessible on nb.mit.edu, which allow students and myself annotate the assigned book excerpts with questions and comments to promote discussion amongst the group. Please visit nb.mit.edu/welcome for further information.

Course Objectives

• Fitting generalized models
• Interpreting fitted models
  1. Depends on study design (esp. case-control studies)
  2. Coefficients
     
  3. Fitted Values
• Modeling stategies
  1. Model assessment
  2. Variable selection

Evaluation

• Assignments: 4, at roughly one-week intervals over the course
• Project: Students will explore a data set and provide a report.
• Classroom participation - students will take turns leading discussion on highlighted reading material on the NB site

Grading weights

• Assignments - 75%
• Project - 15%
• Classroom participation - 10%

Textbooks

• Faraway, J. Extending the Linear Model with R (ELMR)
• Vittinghoff, E. et al, Regression Methods in Biostatistics (RMB)
• Cameron, A. and Trivedi, P., Regression Analysis of Count Data (RACD)
• Harrell, F. Regression modeling strategies (RMS)

The materials below cover more or less the expected background for the course.

• ELMR - Chapter 1
• RMB - Chapters 1, 2 and 3