THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

3250:226‑801

Fall 2005 COMPUTER SKILLS FOR ECONOMIC ANALYSIS Dr. Steven Myers

5:10 – 6:25 p.m. MW CAS 443 Office: A&S 445

Teaching Assistant: Nazan Dirama nd4@uakron.edu

Course notes will be available on http://WebCT.uakron.edu

This is a course designed to establish a minimum baseline of competency in computer usage among all economic majors and minors and other interested students. Use of the computer is a necessity for communicating as an economic analyst and this course will establish a number of minimum competencies that students must have before entering the world of work.

Prerequisite: 3250: 100 or 3250:200 or 3250:244

Instructional Days:

First day of access: August 29, 2005

Last day to withdraw: November 18, 2005

Last scheduled instructional day: December 7, 2005

Scheduled Final Examination tine: Wednesday December 14, 2005, 6:00-7:55 pm

Plan of the course:

The course has a number of minimum competencies in computer tool use that are realized by the student completing an economic analysis using the tool appropriate to demonstrate the competency. Evaluation of the student for competency for each module will be the ability to communicate economic analysis, not just the demonstration of the computer methods. In fact, this course will allow the student to learn a variety of computer skills, but will not teach those skills primarily. Rather, the application of those tools to economic analysis is the overarching goal of the class. Students will use economic concepts and tools from the prerequisite principles class to conduct the economic analysis.

Each competency or module will require the student to:

· Learn and communicate knowledge of the computer skill.

· Explore a topic in economics, personal support as an economist or economic analysis particularly addressable by the computing skill in question.

· Present formally the economic analysis using the newly-qualified computing tool.

The student will create a portfolio of these analyses that can be shown to potential employers. This portfolio will be in the form of an electronic cache of web pages and artifacts and will be planned out by the individual student. Portfolios are at http://gozips.uakron.edu/~myers/E226

Minimum computer skills (modules):

· Word processing in Microsoft Word (includes equation editor and insertion of images & graphics, footnotes, and references)

· Spreadsheet use (includes data input, graphics, database management)

· PowerPoint presentations

· Statistical software (SAS) to organize and analyze data

· E-mail (include attachments and email management)

· Internet searches, especially Google.com

· Library resources (including EconLit)

· Data sources, working papers, full texts of journals on the Internet

· Web page writing using Netscape Composer

Evaluation:

The instructor and the TA for the course will evaluate student work for each module. The student will be evaluated on each module according to the following criteria:

· Demonstrated competency in using the computer tool.

· Demonstrated skill in knowing and using the resources needed to succeed in the module, and

· An assessment of the content of the economic support document, economic facts and economic analysis.

Grading:

Grades will be assigned for each module. That grade will be a weighted grade across the three evaluation points above. I anticipate that the first two points will demonstrate competency and carry a grade of near 100%, and only the final point may have student to student variation.

The modules will make up 75% of the final grade, while 25% will be allocated to the final portfolio production. A portion of those points will be allocated for overall quality and professionalism of the finished product.

Attendance Policy: Attendance will be essential to have access to the projects and instructions for each week. Absences, when noticed, will be recorded and will represent a detriment to the course grade.

Weekly schedule:

Unless changed in class I anticipate that

· Monday will represent instructor-led presentations,

· Wednesday will represent instructor attended lab time

Required Books:

Judge, Guy. Computing Skills for Economists, John Wiley and Sons, May 2000. (ISBN 0-471-98806-5) Amazon price $65.00. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471988065/qid=1093843513/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/102-8207844-6867315?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Delwiche, Lora and Susan Slaughter. The Little SAS Book: A Primer, 3^nd edition, SAS Publishing, 2003. (ISBN 1-590-47333-7) Amazon Price $27.30. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590473337/qid=1093843580/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-8207844-6867315?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Recommended Books:

Clayton, Gary E. and Martin Gerhard Giesbrecht. A Guide to Everyday Economic Statistics, 6^th edition, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2003. (ISBN 0-072-87329-9) Amazon Price $22.19. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0072873299/ref=lpr_g_1/102-5181190-6913730?v=glance&s=books

Duke, Michael, et al. Microsoft Excel for Microeconomics, Prentice Hall, 2003. (ISBN 0-131-42124-7) Amazon Price $30.00.

Duke, Michael, et al. Microsoft Excel for Macroeconomics, Prentice Hall, 2003. (ISBN 0-131- 40467-9) Amazon Price $30.00.

Computer Requirements

In order to fully participate in the course, you need to have the following:

Each student must acquire a UAnet id (https://gozips.uakron.edu/zid/user.html). Every student should already have this.
Each student will need to be familiar with Internet Explorer to access this course and other resources. Students may also use Netscape Navigator.
Students must use Webmail (http://webmail.uakron.edu/) or forward their UAnet ID to an e-mail address they read often. Go here (https://gozips.uakron.edu/zid/user.html) and choose ‘email management’ to forward your email.
Interested students can seek help for off-campus use in the basement of the library at the Technology Learning Support Center. Their phone numbers is (330) 972-6888, or email them at tlsc@uakron.edu. Hours are on the page listed in the next link.
The best URL for help is the http://www.uakron.edu/vpcio/learning/tlsc.php.
Students are required to use the class homepage at http://WebCT.uakron.edu.
Other information of interest to you in that support page includes getting roadrunner (OBEN) for high-speed access. Help in using the university library including full text access from home is here http://www.uakron.edu/libraries/
Much of the work of this course will have to be completed in the Econometrics laboratory and with access to the economics department server.

Communication Requirements

1. You must regularly read your UAnet email or have it forwarded to your preferred email account. See some of the links above or go to my online page gozips.uakron.edu/~myers/online for a link that might help.

2. If I communicate to your UAnet email account I will assume you have read it within a day. There is no exception to this.

3. Use your UAnet email as your primary email address. I can respond to any email address you use, but when I am mailing to you I will either email internally in WebCT or to your UAnet address only.

Links:

Computer Requirements

Communication Requirements

Some Databases for this course