Getting Help

Office Hours

This course offers office hours from different members of the course staff that are held at throughout the week at different pre-schedules.

Detailed information can be found in the course staff portion of the syllabus.

GitHub Forum

For class discussion, we will use a GitHub repository and its issue system. This forum will be private and restricted to those in the course.

It is very important that each student

  • registers a Github account (unless they already have one); such a Github account is generally different from the U of I Netid
  • let the instructors know about the Github id so that we can invite the student to the (private) course discussion project

See below for recommendations on form and content.

Email

Before you start writing an e-mail to a member of the course staff please make sure your question is not:

  • Already answered in this syllabus or course FAQ: the syllabus serves as the guiding document for the course and we are unlikely to shift from it.
  • About exercises or homework: please ask the question on the GitHub discussion forum so that all students have access to the answer.
  • A technical issue or code error
    • Try to google the error verbatim (e.g. copy and paste it into Google).
    • Many error messages that you will encounter have likely been solved by others.
    • StackOverflow and similar forums can be helpful.

With these cases addressed, please ensure your e-mails meet the following criteria:

  • The e-mail must be sent from an @illinois.edu account. Please do not use another account such as Gmail as we may be unable to associate that with your account.
  • The start of the subject line should contain the tag: [STAT 430], and should be followed by a space and a helpful brief description of the contents.
  • A good Subject line would be [STAT 430] Cannot load data file: error ... whereas [STAT 430] Need help or [STAT 430] Code not working... are bad examples.
  • Use the course Staff E-Mail address is stat-430dspm@illinois.edu to reach all members of the course team.

We try our best to respond within 24 hours. Homework questions sent the same day homework is due will likely not receive a response before the homework is due. Plan accordingly.

The StackOverflow resources on how to ask a good question, and on how to make a reproducible example are helpful.

Do not post homework code. The campus rules on academic integrety apply to all communication, including email.

External Tutors

Please see the FAQ item on for hire tutors.