Third Biennial Undergraduate Statistics Project Competition (USPROC)

The CAUSE (Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education) announces its third biennial undergraduate statistics project competition (USPROC). The purpose of USPROC is to encourage the development of data analysis skills, to enhance presentation skills, and to recognize outstanding work by undergraduate statistics students.

The top three projects will earn monetary awards of $750 for first place, $500 for second place, and $250 for third place. The next three projects will receive honorable mention.

The first (or any other designated) author and one instructor sponsor of each of the top three projects will be invited to present their posters at the 2011 United States Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS 2011). The lodging and registration fee for these student presenters will be supported. The maximum support of transportation expense for the student presenter is $500 (or economy class airfare, whichever is smaller) for each team.

The registration fee for the instructor sponsor will be supported. If the instructor sponsor also makes a presentation at the USCOTS, their lodging will also be covered.

Who may participate?

1. The competition is open to any undergraduate student globally.
2. Students may work individually or in groups of up to 3 persons. All participants must be undergraduate students at the time of conducting their project work.
3. For students who may graduate by Fall 2010, their projects are eligible for the competition as long as they have undergraduate status when conducting the projects.
4. Each student can be the author or a co-author of only one project submitted for the competition. Each project must have at least one instructor sponsor. The advising from the instructor(s) should be similar to the advice given to students in their class projects. The instructor sponsor(s) should remind students to follow the guidelines and meet the deadline.

Project scope:

1. Students may choose any topic on which to conduct the study.
2. The originality and interestingness of the project will be judged.
3. The project must involve statistical applications using real data. Students may collect their own data or use existing data. The design of the study, the process of data collection and data manipulation will be judged.
4. Students are encouraged to apply any data analysis techniques that are appropriate. The appropriateness of the analysis will be judged.

Awards:

There will be a first, second, and third place, along with three honorable mentions.

Prizes: The top three winners will receive the following cash prizes:

• 1^st place : $750
• 2^nd place : $500
• 3^rd place : $250

One author (the first author or a designated author) and one instructor sponsor of each of the top three winning projects will be invited to present their winning project at the 2011 United States Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS 2011). The lodging and registration fee for the student presenters will be covered. The maximum support of transportation expense per student presenter is $500 or economy class airfare, whichever is smaller.

The registration fee for the instructor sponsor will be covered. If the instructor also makes a presentation at USCOTS, their lodging will be covered.

In the case where a winning project has more than one author and/or more than one instructor sponsor, only one of the authors and one of the instructors will be supported. The announcement of the ranks and the presentation of the awards to the winners will take place at the USCOTS.

Project Submission Period:

From May 1^st, 2010 to February 28^th, 2011

Students conducting their projects in Fall of 2009 or in Spring of 2010 are encouraged to submit their projects as early as May 2010.

Announcement of winners:

Between April 11^th and April 17^th, 2011

Guidelines for submission:

The project must be submitted through email as an attachment to usproc@cmich.edu. Please enter 'Third Biennial Undergraduate Project Competition' in the Subject: line of your e-mail.

Materials to be submitted include:

1. The cover page with the check list of materials submitted.
2. A set of no more than 24 PowerPoint slides that consist of all essential materials addressing all of the evaluation criteria. This is the only material that will be evaluated by the judges. Do not include abstract and references in the slides. They will be included in the supplemental Word document (see item 3). Format for the preparation of the PowerPoint slides is given below:
   1. No names, university affiliation or any information linking to the authors is allowed on the slides.
   2. The title of the presentation should be no less than a 36 point font. Any subtitle should be no less than a 24 point font and any other text should be no less than a 20 point font.
   3. Font size for tables should not be less than a 16 point font.
3. A supplemental Word document of 5 pages or less:
   1. This supplemental document will not be evaluated by the judge. It is mainly for clarification.
   2. This document should consist of the title, abstract, references, and acknowledgement, if applicable, as well as additional information that the authors would like to provide to the judges such as a subset of data records, additional graphs, additional details of the process of data analysis and so on.
   3. Use the following sequence: Title (centered), Abstract, additional information, Acknowledgement, References.
   4. Apply 1" margin, 12 point font size and one space between different sections.
   5. No names, university affiliation or any information linking to the authors is allowed in this supplemental document.

NOTE: The judges may want to verify the results in any project. The Organizing Committee may request the data set(s) used in the project if requested by the judges. CAUSE reserves the right to use the projects or data for promoting undergraduate statistics education. Any promotional material will not be used for commercial purposes. If CAUSE uses the projects or data, the project's author(s) and the data sources will be acknowledged.

The project will be judged based on the following criteria* with the weight in parentheses:

1. Description of the data source (15%)
2. Appropriateness and correctness of data analysis (40%)
3. Appropriateness and correctness of conclusions and discussion (20%)
4. Overall clarity and presentation (15%)
5. Originality and interestingness of the study (10%)

* All essential materials addressing these criteria must be in the PowerPoint slides.

Contact information:

Carl Lee
Department of Mathematics
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859
Phone: (989) 774-3555

Questions regarding to the competition: Email: carl.lee@cmich.edu

Email address for project submission: USPROC@CMICH.EDU

Organizing Committee:

Felix Famoye, Central Michigan University
John Holcomb, Cleveland State University
Carl Lee (Chair), Central Michigan University
Chris Malone, Winona State University
Nathan Tintle, Hope College
Jeff Witmer, Oberlin College