NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook of Statistical Methods (Tidyverse Edition)

Worked examples reproduced in R using the tidyverse

Preface

This book is a tidyverse-based re-implementation of the NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook of Statistical Methods, originally published as a static HTML handbook with worked examples in Dataplot.

Each chapter follows the structure of the original handbook, but the worked examples are reproduced using R and the tidyverse family of packages (dplyr, tidyr, ggplot2, purrr, broom, and related extensions). Original datasets are retained for reference and validation.

The source content for this migration lives in handbook/ at the root of this repository.

Why this edition exists

I first became aware of the e-Handbook in the early 2000s, while working in optical metrology (reflectometry, ellipsometry, and scatterometry) for a semiconductor capital equipment company — the content was directly applicable to my role as an application scientist. I have continued to use it throughout my career, including outside the semiconductor industry, and eventually as a primary text for a graduate-level applied statistics course I have taught for almost a decade.

The content and examples in the e-Handbook are excellent and meet its stated objective to “help scientists and engineers incorporate statistical methods into their work as efficiently as possible.” While minor corrections have been made over the years, the last major update is reported as April 2012, and the layout — a 1990s-era HTML frameset — is less than ideal for modern use. An additional challenge to using the e-Handbook as a primary course text has been the infrequent, but always poorly timed, shutdowns of the U.S. government, which take the website offline along with it. (I have made a handbook.zip snapshot available to students in the past, but this is far from an ideal substitute for a working site.)

This edition exists to address both problems: a modern, searchable book format, and a local, version-controlled copy that doesn’t depend on any single website staying up. See the “Methodology” appendix for how it was produced, and “About the Editor” for more on who put it together.