Using MiniTab at the University of Puget Sound

Credits:  What follows is essentially a copy of a handout developed by Matt Pickard for his Math 160 classes.  Thanks, Matt!

Access to MiniTab:

• MiniTab is accessible at the following laboratories:
• Library main floor
• Library 018
• MacIntyre 324
• (MacIntyre 324 is a teaching lab, and is not always accessible.  We may meet there from time to time (always announced in advance).)
• MiniTab may also be purchased by students for a semester, year, or permanently with significant savings.  More information can be found by following this link

Course materials:

• Data sets for the examples, homework exercises, and tables are available on the disk that came with the (new) copy of the textbook.
• If you purchased a used copy of the textbook, these files are available on the Textbook web site and also on \\alexandria\stats\matthews (please remind me to do a demo of this in class).  In addition to the textbook files, I will also, from time to time, put other data files I find interesting and useful (such as the two-year rainfall data I extracted from the King County Hydrologic Information Center.  If you find other sources of interesting data, please let me know.
• Textbook files come in several forms.  We will want to use the MiniTab versions (text, Excel, and other formats are available as well).  Each folder of textbook data is divided into chapters.  Within each chapter folder, files are named as follows (and I am particularly indebted to Matt for clearing this up for me):
• EGXX_YYY should hold the data for example YYY in chapter XX.
• EX is the prefix for data used for exercises.  We will be using these files a lot.  If you are retrieving this data from \\alexandria\stats, please be sure to copy the data into your workspace before working with it.  A reminder is important at this point:  be sure that you have backup copies of all that you do in this class (for example, your personal account on Alexandria and a thumb drive).
• TA is the prefix for tables.