We are excited to announce that the Second Edition of OpenIntro Statistics will be released in August! The First Edition will remain available for one more academic year (2012-2013), or longer if there is continued interest. The Second Edition is a further evolution of OpenIntro Statistics and includes the following important changes:
- New data. Many of the data sets, some just one or two years old, have been swapped out for newer data and studies. We've worked hard to ensure that OpenIntro Statistics remains fresh and current.
- Updated Chapter 1. Data collection is now featured ahead of the summaries and graphics sections. We include a new research study with surprising results to lead off the textbook and engage students. Two new data sets featuring email and census data take the place of the possum and cars data sets that are present in the First Edition. An important new subsection has also been added that includes intensity maps to highlight the structure of spatial data.
- Chapter 5 and 6 updates. These chapters previously were structured around large and small samples. Chapter 5 will now introduce inference methods for numerical data, and Chapter 6 will feature methods for categorical data (proportions, contingency tables). The section on ANOVA will be moving from Chapter 8 to Chapter 5 and will remain a “special topic” section.
- Sample size conditions have evolved slightly. We now set 30 as the standard for using the normal approximation for numerical data and 5 as the minimum expected cell count size for chi-square. With these changes, we also add more strict and explicit conditions regarding skew and table size to ensure the methods remain rigorous and appropriate.
- New logistic regression section. Chapter 8 includes a brand new section featuring logistic regression in the context of developing a filter for email spam. Our final spam filter isn't on par with Gmail's spam filter, but we make a surprising amount of headway in just 9 pages. This new section also highlights ideas and methodology students could see in a second applied statistics course, which makes this new logistic regression section a nice closing act for the content of OpenIntro Statistics and one that is within reach of an advanced or honors introductory statistics course.
As noted, the First Edition will remain available electronically and in print for at least one year — and much longer if there is interest from instructors. The Second Edition will continue the tradition of being priced at cost: about $10 for a paperback and free for the PDF. The Second Edition source will be made available online by the end of August.
We are very excited for the new release! We believe instructors will find it is a natural evolution of OpenIntro Statistics, and one that is easy to use for almost any introductory statistics course to try out or adopt.