Introductory Biostatistics 

Common Course ID: Statistics 109
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a statistics course for undergraduate or graduate students by Yoon G. Kim, Ph.D. at Humboldt State University. The open textbook provides 900 quality pages of information for those new to the field of statistics. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was to save students money. Most student access the open textbook as a .pdf.

Course Title and Number
Brief Description of course highlights:  STAT 109. Introductory Biostatistics requires students to first take MATH 101 or MATH 101i or MATH 102 (may be concurrent with IA) or equivalent, or IA. It meets the Lower Division Area D GE requirement. Course catalog.

Student population:  Introductory course that is open to math majors, applied statistics minors, and students looking to fulfill their GE requirements

Learning or student outcomes:  List student learning outcomes for the course. 

• use skills beyond the level of intermediate algebra to solve problems through quantitative reasoning
• apply mathematical concepts and quantitative reasoning to problems

Key challenges faced and how resolved: Most professors have a hard time adopting OER textbooks because they don’t often come with some of the ancillary materials that commercial textbooks use. Kim, however, never had to worry about that issue because his extensive custom classroom notes were always his primary source. This meant that replacing the textbook didn’t have to take as much time or effort on his part. Its role was always meant to be secondary. He still had to put in some effort, however. There are many different approaches to solving statistics problems, so Kim had to make sure that the approach he taught matched the approach that the book was using/teaching.

The text has yet to adopt the new R programming language, instead using traditional TI calculators. Despite this, he still recommends the text. It’s easy enough to teach students how to do calculations using the R software by himself.

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: 

Brief Description:  Introductory Statistics Taken from the summary: Introductory Statistics follows scope and sequence requirements of a one-semester introduction to statistics course and is geared toward students majoring in fields other than math or engineering. The text assumes some knowledge of intermediate algebra and focuses on statistics application over theory. Introductory Statistics includes innovative practical applications that make the text relevant and accessible, as well as collaborative exercises, technology integration problems, and statistics labs.

Authors: Barbara Illowsky, Susan Dean (senior contributing authors)

Student access:    Most of his students access the OpenStacks textbook as a .pdf, but they also sell a physical copy for about $20 for students who prefer the tactile experience of reading a real book.

Supplemental resources: He supplements his OER textbook with free notes that he’s made over the course of his 25 years of teaching he has turned into a pseudo-textbook.

Cost Savings: The textbooks otherwise used would be “easily $100-120.” He teaches two sections of Statistics 109, and each of those classes have ~50 students. He saves students altogether around $5000 per semester.
License:   Creative Commons Attribution License v4.0

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. The original reason he adopted the 900-page OpenStacks OER textbook was because it wouldn’t cost his students anything, but as he kept using it, he was impressed by its overall quality.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? By searching for OER online.

Sharing Best Practices: If you’re teaching an introductory statistics course, definitely use OpenStax. Also, if you can get into contact with Dr. Kim, ask about supplementing your textbook with some of his decades of lecture notes too!

Yoon G. Kim 
Humboldt University

Provide a statement of your teaching philosophy and courses you teach (or taught):  General education in the natural sciences and mathematics focuses on the physical universe and its life forms. This requirement helps students cope with, and participate in, the changing world. Recognizing the importance of scientific methods as investigative tools, the courses present science

as a unified discipline with a major impact on the human condition. (from syllabus)

Share any curricular or pedagogical changes that you made: My classes haven’t changed too much since adopting OER. A lot of the dynamic and hotly-debated topics in statistics don’t pop up until the advanced, graduate-level courses. Meanwhile, the introductory-level classes stay relatively the same. Since the only OER textbook I'm using is for the introductory courses, I found that the changes I made to my class were very surface-level.