E-mail Policy

Instead of email, consider the GitHub forum! All public questions should be written there. Please do not overshare code.

Course Link: STAT 385 @ UIUC (Invite Only!)

Administrative Questions

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

  1. Already answered in the course policies or course FAQ.
    • The course policies serves as the guiding document for the course and we’re unlikely to shift from it.
  2. About exercises on homework.
    • Please ask the question at the start of class, office hours, or on the discussion forum so that all students have access to the answer.

Code Questions

If the question is more of a technical issue, have you tried 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. Try to seek out a pre-existing solution prior to querying us as it will allow you to gain the highly sought after technical problem-solving capabilities and will likely bring a quicker resolution to your question.

To aide with googling, please use either searcher (interface to search engines) or errorist (automatic search on error or warning)

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("coatless/errorist")

# Enable automatic error and warning lookup
# by loading the `errorist` package
library(errorist)

E-mail Criteria

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

  1. The e-mail must be sent from an @illinois.edu account.
  2. The start of the subject line must contain the tag: [STAT 385]
    • Note the space between STAT and 385.
  3. The tag must be followed by a space and a helpful description of the contents of the email. e.g.
    • Good: “[STAT 385] I cannot compile Rcpp code on macOS”
    • Bad: “[STAT 385] Help MEEEEE” or “[STAT 385] Code doesn’t work…”

If your email is sent between 9:00 AM Monday and 11:59 PM Thursday, and you follow the above directions, we will try our best to respond within 24 hours. Homework questions sent the same day a homework is due will likely not receive a response before the homework is due. Plan accordingly.

Course Staff E-mails

Role Name Email
Instructor James Balamuta stat-385@illinois.edu
Course Assistant John Lee stat-385@illinois.edu
Binxiang “Brian” Ni stat-385@illinois.edu
Xueqing “Wendy” Wang stat-385@illinois.edu

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