# Open Educational Resources for Statistics and Data Science

OER at UH Manoa is growing and the Mathematics is participating with free online (and cheap hard copy) textbooks for MATH 111-112 and MATH 372 on the books and in the works.

The MATH 372 textbook, tentatively entitled Statistics and Hidden Markov Models for Calculus Students, is authored by Professor Bjørn Kjos-Hanssen and PhD student Samuel Birns.

The book is being developed during Fall 2018. It is a supplement to OpenIntro Statistics (3rd Edition), a free textbook which describes calculus in a mathematics-rich but calculus-free way. Reading it, one will encounter many practical examples and probability calculations, but may never learn that the standard normal probability density function is
$$f_Z(z)=\frac1{\sqrt{2\pi}}e^{-z^2/2}.$$
MATH 372 is our junior-level elementary probability and statistics course and is intended for students who have already taken Calculus I and II. (Students who have taken Calculus III and IV can learn why the normal distribution has that $\frac1{\sqrt{2\pi}}$ factor in MATH 471 and MATH 472, our senior-level courses on the subject.)

A hidden message in the book title is that linear algebra is not a required prerequisite. Thus, we do not go into the typical machine learning material. However, the book includes a chapter on Hidden Markov Models and an associated complexity notion studied in Kjos-Hanssen’s recent Experimental Mathematics article.

MATH 372 is projected to become a high-enrollment course starting in Spring 2019 when Information & Computer Sciences starts to require it for their data science concentration.