Internet Resources
The Internet is a big haystack in which to find needles of useful information. Here are some sites that provide useful information. If you find good data site on your own not listed here or if you find problems with these, please email me.

Basic Excel Training

(The following sites were researched by Kevin Shytle, McLaren MBA Fellow)

I have listed several sites below. The first three are free sites. I would look at the top two first (because the course on blackboard.com is hard to get to). Please note that these sites may change or disappear at any time, especially the course on Blackboard. If you don't mind spending the money, I think the pay site at Smartplanet.com offers the best course.

http://www.usd.edu/trio/tut/excel This site has a tutorial that takes you through some basics of Excel.

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Pages/Excel/homepage.html If it tells you that you don't have permission to access the site, go to http://www.extension.iastate.edu and then in the top bar type in the first URL above and it should take you there. This site takes you through some basic Excel functions and gives you some exercises to complete.

http://cma.zdnet.com/texis/cdsales/cd_disp_001.html Pay Site: Offers training CD’s on Microsoft Office XP and other business programs.

Basic Data Sources

• 1999 US Statistical Abstract table by table: Click here
• A source of economic data from the US and other countries: http://www.globalfindata.com/
• FRED - Economic data made available from the Federal Reserve Board: http://www.stls.frb.org/fred/data/wkly.html
• Resources for Economists contains many useful links: http://rfe.wustl.edu/EconFAQ.html
• Historical data on the Dow, NASDAQ, S&P 500, or any other stock:  http://finance.yahoo.com/?u
• Great financial data sites discovered by USF's Prof. Nicholas Tay: http://www.usfca.edu/~tay/
• Local data from the SF Chronicle newspaper: http://www.sfgate.com/business/
• A clever webpage for personal finance: http://www.fool.com/

Experimental Design:

• A primer on the fundamentals: http://www.sytsma.com/phad530/expdesig.html
• Mastermind on the web: http://matti.usu.edu/nlvm/nav/frames_asid_179_g_4_t_1.html?open=instructions
• More for the mathematically inclined (gets into analysis of variance): http://www.stats.gla.ac.uk/steps/glossary/index.html
• Basic Logic: http://www.philosophypages.com/lg/e01.htm#arg

Hypothesis Testing:

• A primer on the fundamentals: http://www.sytsma.com/phad530/typei&ty.html
• More general discussion of concepts: http://www.ganesha.org/spc/hyptest.html

Regression and Forecasting Related Material:

• For a list of forecasting principles, click here: http://www-marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/forecast/
• For a list of forecasting software, click here: http://lionhrtpub.com/orms/surveys/FSS/fss-fr.html
• For a nonacademic site on forecasting: http://www-marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/forecast/practitioners.html

TQM

The American Society for Quality: www.asq.org

ISO 9000 Standards: http://qualitypress.asq.org/iso9000

General:

• A website for a company that produces CD-Roms for Statistics, Operations Management, and related topics:       http://www.cogitomedia.com/
• Free software: http://www.download.com
• For those who are interested in the issues associated with the origins of the universe: http://www.reasons.org/
• For those who wonder how God can allow evil to exist in the world and related issues: http://www.str.org/
• For those who wish to explore a true intellectual debate on how to empirically detect intelligent design: http://www.discovery.org/csc