USING MINITAB IN MATH DEPARTMENT COMPUTER LABS

I. To use math department labs, you need an account. To get one, you will need to go to the main math department computer lab, RLM 7.122. You will need you UT EID, and possibly my name.

II. In addition to the "big lab" mentioned above, there are smaller graduate student computer labs on the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth floors of RLM.

III. To open Minitab, use the menu that pops up from the lower left corner of the screen. (If you don't see Minitab right away, try the submenu "Mathematics."  It may take a while for Minitab to open.)

IV. To use data sets from the textbook:

1. Go to the web site http://www.wright.edu/~dan.voss/bookdata/data.html

2. Click on "txt" after the desired data file. This should open the data file in a new window in your browser. You may now use one of two method:

Method A:

    3.For use in step 6 below, note how many columns are used.

    4. Hold down the right mouse button to get a pop-up menu . Choose "Save Page As."

    5. Proceed as usual to download file to whatever folder you choose in your home directory. (Click on the house icon at the bottom of the screen to access your home directory.)

    6. In Minitab, go the File menu. Choose "Other Files," then "Import Special Text".

    7. Enter the columns in which you wish to put the data. (For example, c1 - c3 if there are three columns).

    8. Choose "text" in the list of file types.

    9. If you do not now see the data in the worksheet window, choose "Data" from the Window menu.

    10. You may need to clean up the file a little bit -- e.g., put in column names and delete the first row.

Method B: Copy and paste the data onto a Minitab worksheet. (I haven't tried this method myself.)

Save the worksheet as a Minitab file so you can just open it using "open worksheet" or "open project" when you use it again.