AS1104 – Coursework No.1: - Report writing using Minitab

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Coursework No. 1: Fantasy Football

Introduction
In this coursework exercise you are required to analyse an imaginary dataset of football players’
performance in a fantasy championship1. The purpose of this exercise is to investigate the dataset
using the graphical and statistical tools learned in the first part of the IT Applications module and
also to formulate your observations and conclusions in a technical report.
You have to consider that the primary role of the report is to provide advice and numerical evidence
to a football manager in order to select an ideal team of 17 players from the ones contained in the
data. You need to assume that the ‘dream team’ is subject to a maximum of $2.3 mil total budget
per week (given that the selected players would receive exactly the same salaries in the newly
selected team as they are currently paid). The dream team should contain at least 4 defenders, 3
forwards, 1 goalkeeper and 5 midfielders. Thus, other than your empirical investigation (i.e.
methodology) in the main body, the conclusion of the report should contain the list of suggested
players to be selected alongside a brief explanation of your selection criteria.
Coursework Tasks
The starting point for the tasks is to come up with a reasonable course of actions that you can carry
out on the data set in Minitab and to decide what you would like to focus your investigation on. It is
suggested that you loosely follow the actions described in the Lab exercise sheet No. 3, but please
note that those are neither compulsory nor the only possibilities (for example a plot of the total
salaries against total points by individual clubs could provide a nice overview of the data). Having
said that, you should include in your analysis at least the main type of graphical illustrations of the
data described in the lectures (like pie/bar chart, histogram, scatter plot) and also some relevant
summary statistics by the main categorical variables (like Pos, Club, etc). Similarly, note that the
scoring system has a very important effect on the outcome. Therefore, you should aim to explain to
your football manager the purpose of the points (as an overall measure of the players’
performance), in particular if you decide to change the scheme that was suggested in the lab
worksheet.
Note that the correctness of the methodology and the analytical thinking applied (i.e. from the point
of view of the game of football) is NOT the primary concern in this coursework. The emphasis is
placed mainly on providing a good description of the methods and assumptions used in the analysis
and also on the quality of the presentation (e.g. layout of the report, standard of graphs in terms of
annotations/labels used, appropriateness of tables, etc.).

1 The names are real from a past US soccer competition Major League Soccer clubs as found in the original
source, but the information in the data sets (such as the clubs where they play and their salary, etc.) are
randomised artificially!
AS1104 – Coursework No.1: - Report writing using Minitab

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Reports
Each report should follow the standard format of a technical report. The length of the report should
not exceed 10 pages (including the graphs and tables) and the text component should be made up
by roughly 1,000-2,000 words (using font 11 or 12). Providing a very short or an overly long report
would be counterproductive in this case and you should avoid it. In the following are indicated some
possible contents of the report that you need to submit based on the tasks at hand.
1. Executive Summary (not compulsory here)
If included, this should provide a brief description of the purpose of the report and the main features
of the analysis alongside the main findings (e.g. the broad make-up of the dream team in terms of
costs, number of different types of players, but without going into too many details).
2. Introduction
This is an important part of any report and it should be given just as much attention as to the main
body. The purpose of any introduction is to attract the reader’s attention and to give a brief idea to
the background of the analysis which is described in the document. In this case, a reasonable
introduction should include a description of the data source and what it represent (it is alright if you
just make one up here) and the aims/objectives of the investigation (i.e. to provide empirical
evidence for the dream team selection process). In addition, you could give a brief description of
what the reader will find in the document in terms of output (the sort of graphs, tables and scoring
system that are used in the analysis).
3. Methodology
This should make up the main body of the report and it should give a more detailed description of
the analysis employed in the investigation (e.g. suggested avenues are salary against points and the
impact of cards/goals, or looking at the make-up of better performing clubs as a model). Thus, right
from the outset it could state the reasons of carrying out any particular technique of illustrations or
data manipulations (for example, by describing what sort of numerical evidence you are looking for).
Then, the results should be presented by the means of appropriately numbered graphs and tables,
which need to be briefly described in words (what they illustrate and what they tell us as far as the
selection process is concerned).
Subject to space constraints, you could also consider describing alternative avenues of investigations
that you might have carried out but turned out to be of little value (and why so). Also, here you
could mention data reliability issues (or any errors or encouraging facts that you found – eg. if it is in
line with what one might expect in terms of how players have performed or how much they have
been paid).
Finally, your methodology description should lead up to the selection process and what sort of
players you are looking for all in all and why (and how you have done this in Minitab). Indicate that
in the conclusions you will provide further details about the ‘dream team’ players.
4. Conclusions
The conclusions should present the list of chosen players and some relevant statistics that makes
them desirable from the point of view of your selection criteria. Also, you could include some
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graphical illustrations of the makeup of the team (e.g. salary against potential score). Finally, you
might consider some auxiliary issues, like why and how the players would perform better as a team
or things related to data issues (such as how useful the data set was or what sort of additional
information you think it would have been helpful for your analysis).

Submission
Submit in Moodle a final report document (.docx) and a clean project file (.mpx) containing your
data, notes/comments to the outputs and your analysis carried out in Minitab. Make sure to
remove all the extra graphs and worksheets that are not directly related to the final report. There
should be only a single submission by each group before the deadline of the first coursework (see
CAP form)! Please note that any submission after this deadline will be subject to a 10% penalty per
day on the coursework grade!
Don’t forget that this is a peer-assessed coursework whereas everyone needs to rate their group
mates (on a scale of 0-5). The peer-assessment grades should be honest and should reflect on
aspects such as: availability, organisation, co-operation with the rest of the team, creativity, meeting
deadlines and competency in their roles (hence keeping a good track record of the group work will
be helpful). Extremely bad scores (e.g. 0 or 1) will be scrutinised (i.e. acceptable only if there are
some genuine reasons for them). Please read carefully the documentation on the peer assessment
portal before grading your team mates.