Business Statistics: A First Course, First Canadian Edition, recognizes both the changing curriculum and the changing pedagogy for teaching introductory statistics. It focuses on application, streamlines and reorganizes topics, sheds unneeded theoretical details, and recognizes learning styles of the current generation of students, making it an attractive choice for one-semester Business Statistics courses at Canadian universitites and colleges.
The Canadian edition uses illustrative case studies and chapter exercises that focus on business and management of Canadian companies, large and small. The writing has Canadian style, perspective, and sensibility, not just changes to spelling and metric measurements. The book recognizes that Canada has public policy, governmental structure and mandate (federal, provincial, and municipal), economic systems (banking and finance), social services, health care, sports and entertainment are different from the United States. While the book is indeed Canadian, it also shows how statistics has no geographical borders, and is a vital part of building and enhancing the global community.
As a researcher of statistical problems in business and a professor at a business school, Norean Radke Sharpe (Ph.D. University of Virginia) understands the challenges and specific needs of the business student. She is currently teaching at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, where she is also Senior Associate Dean and Director of Undergraduate Programs. Prior to joining Georgetown, she taught business statistics and operations research courses to both undergraduates and MBA students for fourteen years at Babson College. Before moving into business education, she taught statistics for several years at Bowdoin College and conducted research at Yale University. Norean is coauthor of the recent text, A Casebook for Business Statistics: Laboratories for Decision Making, and has authored more than 30 articles--primarily in the areas of statistics education and women in science. Norean currently serves as Associate Editor for the journal Cases in Business, Industry, and Government Statistics. Her research focuses on business forecasting and statistics education. She is also co-founder of DOME Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit foundation that works to increase Diversity and Outreach in Mathematics and Engineering for the greater Boston area. She has been active in increasing the participation of women and underrepresented students in science and mathematics for several years and has two children of her own.
Richard D. De Veaux is an internationally known educator and lecturer. He has taught at the Wharton School and the Princeton University School of Engineering, where he won a “Lifetime Award for Dedication and Excellence in Teaching.” Since 1994, he has been Professor of Statistics at Williams College. During 2006–2007 he returned to Princeton as the William R. Kenan Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching. Dick has won both the Wilcoxon and Shewell awards from the American Society for Quality. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association. Dick is also well known in industry, where over 20 years he has consulted for such companies as Hewlett-Packard, Alcoa, DuPont, Pillsbury, General Electric, and American Express. Because of some conversations he had with Mickey Hart while Hart was doing research for his book, Planet Drum, Dick has often been called the “Official Statistician for the Grateful Dead.” Dick holds degrees from Princeton University in Civil Engineering (B.S.E.) and Mathematics (A.B.) and from Stanford University in Dance Education (M.A.) and Statistics (Ph.D.) where he studied with Persi Diaconis. His research focuses on the analysis of large data sets and data mining in science and industry.
Paul F. Velleman has an international reputation for innovative Statistics education. He is the author and designer of the multimedia statistics CD-ROM ActivStats, for which he was awarded the EDUCOM Medal for innovative uses of computers in teaching statistics, and the ICTCM Award for Innovation in Using Technology in College Mathematics. He also developed the award-winning statistics program, Data Desk, and the Internet site Data And Story Library (DASL) (http://dasl.datadesk.com), which provides data sets for teaching Statistics. Paul coauthored (with David Hoaglin) ABCs of Exploratory Data Analysis. Paul has taught Statistics at Cornell University since 1975. He holds an A.B. from Dartmouth College in Mathematics and Social Science, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Statistics from Princeton University, where he studied with John Tukey. His research often deals with statistical graphics and data analysis methods. Paul is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
For the past 25 years Jonathan Berkowitz (Ph.D. University ofToronto) has had a full-time practice asa consulting statistician as president ofthe aptly named Berkowitz & AssociatesConsulting Inc. But Jonathanleads a double life, because is also afull-time instructor with the SauderSchool of Business, and an AssociateMember of the Department of FamilyPractice (Faculty of Medicine) both atthe University of British Columbia. Jonathan is recognized as an outstandingteacher, having won theKillam Teaching Prize for undergraduateteaching and CGA GraduateMaster Teacher Award for MBAteaching, both at the Sauder School,as well as many awards and commendationsfrom students. In additionhe teaches short courses andworkshops for a number of publicand private sector groups. His passionfor teaching also extends toyounger audiences, regularly performingshows on math magic,word games, and puzzles in schoolclassrooms.In his consulting life, Jonathan hasbeen involved in a wide range ofcollaborative and interdisciplinaryresearch in health care and medicalresearch, social science, engineering,biotechnology, transportation,law, management consulting, marketresearch, and accounting. His clientsenthusiastically describe him as a“user-friendly” statistician! He hascontributed to numerous successfulresearch grant applications, and hasco-written many peer-reviewed journalarticles, and other publications. Hehas also helped more than 100 graduatestudents complete their degrees. While numbers are his vocation, wordsare his avocation. A passion for puzzles,word games, and puns infiltratesall aspects of his life, including theclassroom. He is an active memberof the National Puzzlers’ League, andfor six years was the puzzle composerand editor for the American Statistical Association’s CHANCE magazine.
