Decision Trees and The QLC Assignment Calculator

In Stats, which is really called "Analysis Based Decision Making", we are working on the stuff that the title of the course is about:  making decisions when you don't have full information.  In the course, they give you the probabilities of certain outcomes based on the decisions you make (in real life, you either guess about the probability based on your hunches or you use some historical data) and then you apply it to the various models available.  There are a few that we went through, but our assignment is mainly focussed on decision trees. 

You can get an add-in for Excel that helps you create a decision tree.  I don't think I can post one here.  It looks cool.  (My husband walked by and asked how it worked, so you know that there is a bit of a cool factor to how it looks.)  It can be frustrating, though.  For example, the "undo" feature in Excel does not apply to the decision tree.  Once you do something, and it is wrong, you either figure out how to remove the traces of it or you start all over.  I have learned that it is faster to start all over.

I must finish the assignment tonight because I want to work on another assignment tomorrow night and I have a musical to go see on Thursday night.  Priorities...

Speaking of priorities...  I was wandering around the Queen's Library website looking for journal articles on Identity and Access Management Policies (let me know if you have one you can share) and found this neat little tool called The QLC Assignment Calculator.  You put in the date you will be starting your assignment, the due date, and it tells you what you need to have done by when.  For example, I have a Managerial Accounting paper due at the end of April.  By Friday of this week, I have to have my topic selected and some preliminary research done.  By next Friday, I need to find, review and evaluate books.  By March 31st, find, review, and evaluate journal/magazine/newpaper articles.  Then web sites by April 3rd...  Have a structure written by April 4th.  First draft by April 9th...  You get the idea.  They didn't say anything about conducting interviews, though, which is how I will be doing my preliminary research on this applied accounting paper.  I will find a way to blend it in there somewhere.