Introduction to Statistics for the Life and Biomedical Sciences has been written to be used in conjunction with a set of self-paced learning labs. These labs guide students through learning how to apply statistical ideas and concepts discussed in the text with the R computing language.

The text discusses the important ideas used to support an interpretation (such as the notion of a confidence interval), rather than the process of generating such material from data (such as computing a confidence interval for a particular subset of individuals in a study). This allows students whose main focus is understanding statistical concepts to not be distracted by the details of a particular software package. In our experience, however, we have found that many students enter a research setting after only a single course in statistics. These students benefit from a practical introduction to data analysis that incorporates the use of a statistical computing language.

In a classroom setting, we have found it beneficial for students to start working through the labs after having been exposed to the corresponding material in the text, either from self-reading or through an instructor presenting the main ideas. The labs are organized by chapter, and each lab corresponds to a particular section or set of sections in the text.

There are traditional exercises at the end of each chapter that do not require the use of computing. More complicated methods, such as multiple regression, do not lend themselves to hand calculation and computing is necessary for gaining practical experience with these methods. The lab exercises for these later chapters become an increasingly important part of mastering the material.

An essential component of the learning labs are the "Lab Notes" accompanying each chapter. The lab notes are a detailed reference guide to the R functions that appear in the labs, written to be accessible to a first-time user of a computing language. They provide more explanation than available in the R help documentation, with examples specific to what is demonstrated in the labs. The notes cover topics such as constructing histograms, writing loops, and running regression models.

Amazon KDP raised book print prices by ≈40% in mid-June, and they also subsequently removed free shipping from our books by pushing the minimum free shipping price up to $35 from what had been $25 (our account appears to be in the early phase of this price hike rollout, so others should expect to see this change rolled out to them soon). These changes will net Amazon over $50,000 per year from sales on OpenIntro books alone, and we expect that OpenIntro will lose money as a result of reduced sales.

We are actively exploring alternative printers to Amazon that provide better quality books as well as selling more books outside of Amazon at what we estimate will be $35 for a full-color hardcover, including shipping costs. We anticipate trialing this new approach in 2024 with one or more titles.

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Resources for teachers, some of which are restricted to Verified Teachers only. Slides, labs, and other resources may also be found in the corresponding chapter sections below.

Access to exams and these supplemental problem sets are limited to Verified Teachers.

These resources give a taste of what statisticians, also known as data scientists, do in the real world.

Beyond the set of textbooks we offer on openintro.org, many other authors have made their books publicly available. The links below go to the places where these other authors posted their books for free for anyone.