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Hi and welcome to Statistics One.The purpose of this introductory video is just togive you an overview of the course and set someexpectations about what you will see in next 6 weekshere in Statistics One on Coursera.So most of this information is provided on the course websitebut I would like to highlight a few featuresof this course and Coursera in generaland then I would like to say few words about the specific detailsof the course. So what you can expect in terms of the workloadhow many lectures each week, assignments, quizzes and so onFirst, let me start with a few words about Coursera.I would like to thank Daphne Koller and Andrew Ngfor creating such a wonderful site and such a wonderfulmission. And the mission of Statistics One fits soperfectly with Coursera. Its one of the main reasons thatI was drawn into doing this. If you look at the missionstatement on Coursera's website,If you look at the information about Courserathere are a few things that really strike me as being incredibleand revolutionary. And one is the fact that we are able toprovide access to quality education to a global audienceThis is never been done before in the history of the world.

This is amazing.We know that education empowers people.It improves their lives, the lives of their familiesand communities they live in.That's directly from Coursera and I love that phrase.and we all know that to be trueEducation is essential.The other thing I like about Coursera's approachis pedagogically, they emphasize mastery of materialand again that fits perfectly with how I approach teachingStatistics. As I said, in the first videolearning Statistics is like learning anew language. So of course, you have to master it

to be able to use it correctly. So, the mission statementand the vision of Coursera fits perfectly withmy own mission and vision of teaching Statistics and thisis why I do it for living.So, with Statistics one, the approach I am taking in thiscourse is to teach Statistics as a language and just likeCoursera is bringing education to a global audience,Statistics is global language, its a universal language.So by taking this course, you are empowering yourself.again consistent with Coursera's mission and you canempower the people around you. What I like to ask youto do, as students in this course, is once youbecome proficient with Statistics, start promoting that.

among your friends, in your community. You may notknow this but 2013 is the International year of StatisticsSo you are ahead of the game. You will finish this coursebefore the international year of Statistics. Soyou are in position to become leadersin the wave of presenting Statistics to the world.This is an exciting opportunity.Right now we have over 75,000 people in this course.My goal for this course to have one of the highest retentionrates that we have ever seen in an online course.

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So all of this information is provided on the course websiteThere is a homepage. Right below that you will see a courseschedule. In the course schedule, its very detailedyou will exactly when the lectures would be made available onthe website and you will see exactly when quizzes will bemade available, when they are due. When the assignmentsare made available and when they are due and so on..The general structure is we will post 3 lectures per weekso the expectations is that you will watch 3 lectures per weekyou can expect each lecture to be under an hourso my advise is allocate about 3-4 hrs per week, just viewingthe lecture. There is one quiz per week and thatshould take only about half hour to an hour at most and there isone assignment per week. That may take just an hour,may take upto 3 hours, if particularly if writing code andlearning software is new to you, then it might take more time.Also, on the homepage you will see a link todiscussion forums. We have created several forums already,I hope that you will join this forums and actively participatein them. You will notice that we will setup severalforums on specific topics - one is just a general content, soany general questions that you have about the coursebring to the general forum. Then there is aforum for the software package R, which is what we will be

using in this course. So if you have questions specific to Rthen you can go to R forum.We have also created a forum just for Math. So in myexperience teaching Statistics, I know people coming to thiscontent - some people have advanced Math education, sosome of you have probably taken Calculus or even coursesbeyond calculus. whereas others you may not have seen Mathssince your high school algebra class. So for people who aresort of in that latter group, that's a good forum. If you wanna aska really basic questions about some of the mathematicalcomputations that we are covering, you can go to the Math forum.And then finally, there is a technical forum. if there issues thatyou run into with a website or downloading software

you can bring those to the technical forum.Another thing that I would like to mention justalong the same lines as the discussion forum. Thereis a link on the website - call join the Meetup. This issomething new that Coursera has created and has beenwonderfully successful. So around the world, people arefinding just geographically close by neighbors who aretaking the same course and actually get together in real lifenot here online and discuss the course.I hope that happens all over the world and hopefullyI can travel and maybe join on one of these meetups.The last thing I want to say about the details of thecourse, there are assessment built into this course.

So, Its not like a regular college course where you will begetting a grade, but I still structured it that way.So, The final grade, if you will, consists of how you do onweekly quizzes, how you do on the weekly assignmentsand then there will be a mid-term exam and a final exam.and if you just sort of aggregate how you do on all of thoseassessments, you will get an overall view of your performancein the course.. But again, I purposely left that to he endof this video, because that's not really the emphasis hereThe emphasis is on mastery of this material, So really

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everyone should be getting an A or 100%, if want tograde it that way. So one of the wonderful things about this formand this approach to teaching is I finally don't have to worry somuch about the assessment. That said they are there becauseas my advisor in the graduate school like to say - Fear is a greatmotivator. So there are weekly quizzes, so you shouldmotivated to look at those lectures every week.Take notes and be prepared for the weekly quizand your assignments so you are motivated to get intothe software package and learn how to write a code in R.and so on..Let me wrap up this introduction just by again sayingWelcome to Statistics One. I am very excited about thenext 6 weeks and I hope you are too. I hopeyou can stick with it and we have a really strong retentionrate. So welcome and I will see you on lecture 1.