EWorksheets

Important

In order to access the Eworksheets properly, you need to use one of the following web browsers:

Netscape and older Internet Explorer versions not supported!
To access the Interactive tutorials and R manual you will need a pdf viewer To access the flash (swf) version of the R manual, you will need a flash plugin for your web browser

 The aim of these worksheets is to enable users, in there own time and at their own pace, to

  1. apply statistical principals (design, analysis and interpretation) and procedures to real biological data and
  2. become familiar with the use of an important statistical packages.
The worksheets are accompanied by a number of data sets and should be viewed concurrently with the R statistical packages. It is also advised that you have a version of the R manual available (pdf or flash) and have read through the series of introductory tutorials. For each question on the electronic worksheets, users are provided with a brief introduction to a data set, including the research scope and layout of the data, and are guided through a number of data exploration and analysis tasks.

  Blue and red links throughout the worksheets provide popup hints for performing analyses with the statistical package (R and Rcmdr) and additional statistical information respectively. These popup hints appear in a new window that will persist (until closed by the user) to allow users to frequently switch between the statistical software and this interactive worksheet/instructions.

  Instant feedback about whether the correct outcome has been achieved, or that the correct piece of information has been identified is provided for a number of questions via an input (answer) text box and verification indicator. Such questions are indicated by a small clear square that appears to the right of the answer box. Answers are validated while they are being entered and thus an entry is considered incorrect until it matches the answer in full. A correct answer is symbolized by a , an incorrect answer by a and no supplied answer by a .

  For each question that requires a numerical answer, there is an acceptance range from which answers will be considered correct. For example, a particular question might accept any value between 12.3 and 12.5. The exception to this is with very low statistics and P-values. As it is not possible to have a probability of 0, values that are less than 0.001 (which some software may express as 0.000), must be entered as <0.001.

  Input boxes are also provided for all non-feedback questions. These enable students to enter and edit their answers to the questions. Text entered into any of the input boxes can be saved. Instructions for saving and retrieving answers can be accessed at any time by selecting the appropriate item from the Instructions drop down box at the top of the page (in the persistent top frame).