Eleventh hour Phase III Q&A

Update:
Got this email:

Hi Professor,


Will it be possible to extend the deadline for submission of group project from 6 PM to midnight i.e. 12 AM.

There are couple of reasons behind this request :

1) We followed the instructions for extension of SPSS recommended by IT services. However it involved Virtual Box creation which is a terribly slow way to operate heavy data on SPSS (each excel file is 3-4 MB, and it takes 10 minutes just to transfer data from excel to SPSS run on Virtual Box)

2) A lot of time was spent looking for secondary data which we did not expect.

3) Conflicting deadlines for Pricing, CSOT, ENDM and BVFS between today and tomorrow.

Will be grateful if the extension is allowed.
Regards,
G 

My response:

Hi G and Team,


I have no problem with extending the deadline another 6 hrs.

I don't know how to program turnitin.com.

Chandana has set the deadline for 6 PM on the dropbox.

Let me try to reach her and see if she can extend this to 12 midnight.

Shall inform the class soon regarding this.

Sudhir

Hope that clarifies. Shall let you folks know soon via (yet another) mass e-mail..

Sudhir
------------------------------------------------
Hi all,

Got this series of mails from "t" just now. Have edited to remove specifics and focus on general take-aways to share with the class.

Hi Prof,
One question on cluster analysis-
While choosing variables for cluster analysis, can we pick 3 factor scores which are essentially 3 buckets of multiple variables and two individual variables (ie scores on ‘I am generally budget conscious’ and ‘ I carefully plan my finances’)? Does that distort the output? Can it be interpreted?
Regards,
T

My response:

Hi T,
No, that's perfectly fine. In fact, it is recommended when certain variables don;t load very well onto the factor solution in the upstream stage.
As for interpretation, yes it follows the same as it would if they'd been factors. Factor scores are now essentially variable values where we are concerned in downstream analysis.

And then T replied:

Thanks for that prof. The only problem is that the variables under question are becoming disproportionately important in the 'predictor importance' scores and are pulling down the importance of other factor scores.

At which I wrote:

Make sure all the input variables into a cluster analysis program are standardized (i.e. subtract mean and divide by std dev) before cluster analysis to remove variable scaling effects on clustering. That should help.

Sudhir

P.S.
Will keep you posted as more Q&A happens.