Statistics courses

General course flyer

Jump straight to:

Introduction

Here are some of the comments from people who have done one of our courses.

Not many people enjoy statistics; our course participants did! Well, in as far as statistics can be enjoyed. We will throw protocols and flow charts at you, plus a certain amount of humor. We don't use toy data, but real data.

We have been in nearly every country in Europe for courses. From the warm south (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece) to the cold north (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania). From the west (Ireland) to the east (Bulgaria). We have also been in the United Arabic Emirates, Mexico, Canada, and in the extreme south, Argentina and New Zealand.

All in all we have educated about 7000 ecologist. We have revisited some institutes more than 10 times. Various institutes run 2 courses per year. Some of our courses are part of national or EU funded MSc or PhD programmes. Other courses were funded by UNESCO or were part of EU projects.  

The course instructors are a statistician (Dr. Alain Zuur) and a biologist (Dr. Elena Ieno). Our biological and statistical backgrounds ensure a lively and enjoyable interaction with our participants. One of our strong points is that we can explain statistics in an understandable language.

Which courses do we teach?

Unfortunately, we cannot teach you everything in one week. We can entertain you for about 25 days; should you wish to do so. We provide a series of courses, see the table below.

Course

Content

Days

Pre-knowledge

1

Data exploration and visualization with R

3

-

2

Introduction to R (also available as an online course)

3

-

3

Data exploration, regression, GLM and GAM with R

5

Basic stats

4

Linear mixed effects modelling (dealing with heterogeneity, 1-way and 2-way nested data, temporal) and GLMM with R

4

Courses 2 & 3

5

Zero inflated models and GLMM with R. With introduction to Bayesian statistics and MCMC in JAGS.

4

Courses 2 - 4

6

Multivariate analysis with R

5

-
7 GAM and GAMM course (with zero inflation and correlation) 4 Courses 2-4

In practice people do course 3, followed by course 4 or 5 six or twelve months later.  

Our course material

Our course material is based on our three Springer books Analyzing Ecological Data (Zuur et al. 2007), Mixed Effects Models and Extensions in Ecology with R (Zuur et al. 2009) and the best-seller A Beginner's Guide to R (Zuur et al. 2009).

Analysing Ecological Data  Mixed effects modelling and extensions in R  Beginner's Guide to R    When things get complicated

The zero inflated module is taken from Zero Inflated Models and Generalized Linear Mixed Models with R  (Zuur et al., 2012), and the data exploration and visualization module comes from a book in preparation with the same title (Ieno & Zuur, In prep).

Your university library probably has a copy of one of our books. Have a look at the case study chapters; most are based on data sets from previous course participants and are in fact the exercises that you will be doing during the course.

Note that during the courses we discuss concepts, and we will avoid the (limited and isolated) matrix algebra that is in the books.

Attending or organizing a course

The easiest option is to participate in one of the open courses. Alternative, you can organize an open or in-house course at your institute. In-house courses are for a pre-set fee, and you decide who participates. With open courses, you only have to arrange the room; we do the rest.

However, there is a waiting list for new courses of about 12 months. Just email us if you have any questions.

Can you tailor a course?

Yes of course. In general our audience consists of postgraduate ecologists, and the theory and exercise data sets are relatively easy to grasp. Occasionally, we get requests to organize a course for a specific audience. For example, in October 2009 we ran a course for 12 forensic entomologists at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Frankfurt, Germany. CSI viewers will know that these folks have quite interesting data sets; but rather different to what you will find in general statistical textbooks. The course organizer gave us a couple of data sets which we used as exercise data during the course, and we changed some of the examples during the lectures. 

Where do we run our courses?

Anywhere. We have given courses in the UK, Portugal, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Argentina, Italy, The Netherlands, Finland, Spain, Germany, Lithuania, Norway, Bulgaria, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, etc.

Courses in 2013 - 2014

When Where Status Course Remaining seats Flyer Price
18-22 March, 2013 IMARES, The Netherlands In-house Data exploration, regression, GLM & GAM. With introduction to R - - -
15-19 April, 2013 IMARES, The Netherlands In-house Mixed effects modelling - - -
22-26 April, 2013 University of Birmingham and the Environment Agency, Birmingham, UK Open Data exploration, linear regression, GLM & GAM in R. With introduction to R. 0  Flyer 450 GBP + 20% VAT 
15 April 2013 Online Open Online R course: A Beginner's Guide to R Places available Flyer 300 Euro
13-16 May, 2013 Elche, Alicante, Spain Open Introduction to zero inflation and GLMM. 0 Flyer 595 Euro
27-31 May, 2013 Parks Canada, Banff, Canada Open Introduction to linear mixed effects modelling and GLMM course. 0 Flyer 800 CAD
10-13 June, 2013 SAMS, Oban, Scotland Open Beginner's Guide to MCMC, GLM and GAM 2 Flyer 575 GBP + 20%VAT
26-30 August, 2013 Edmonton, Canada Open Data exploration, linear regression, GLM & GAM in R. With introduction to R. 10 Flyer 800 CAD
7-11 October, 2013 NIOZ, The Netherlands In-house TBA 0 - -
14-18 October, 2013 IMR, Bergen, Norway In-house TBA 0 - -
28 October - 1 November, 2013 UMB, Norway In-house Introduction to linear mixed effects modelling and GLMM   - -
11-15 November, 2013 NIOZ, The Netherlands In-house TBA 0 - -
2-6 December, 2013 IMR, Bergen, Norway In-house   0    
             
March 2014 Klaipeda, Lithuania Open Multivariate analysis with introduction to R Not open for registration yet   600-650 Euro
3-7 February, 2014 University of Coimbra,
Coimbra,
Portugal		 Open Data exploration, linear regression, GLM & GAM in R. With introduction to R. Not open for registration yet Flyer 600 - 650 Euro
10-13 February, 2014 Lisbon, Portugal Open Introduction to linear mixed effects modelling and GLMM course. Not open for registration yet   550 Euro
April 2013 Online Open Online follow-up course for participants who have attended our data exploration, regression, GLM & GAM course in R. Email to register Flyer 100 GBP
  Elche, Alicante, Spain Open Coming in 2014: 4-day GAM and GAMM course (with random effects, zero inflation, and correlation)     1,000 Euros

 

See below for terms and conditions.

 

Course registration

To register for an open course, please contact us by email (highstat@highstat.com). We need to know your name and address for the invoice and which course you would like to attend. Please read the terms and conditions below before registering.

Terms and conditions:

  1. All fees are payable 6 weeks in advance and no admission to the course will be permitted until payment has been received. 
  2. Course literature and software is copyright protected and may not be reproduced or distributed without permission.  
  3. The course content might be modified or improved prior to the course start date. 
  4. In most courses, we are able to cover all advertised modules. Unexpected factors like power cuts, food poissoning, airline strikes etc. may slow us down. Occasionally the numerical knowledge of the participants is slightly lower than expected. We will do our best to cover all modules, but sometimes this is not possible. No refund will be given if we cannot cover all modules.
  5. Accommodation is not included as part of the course fee and participants are expected to make their own arrangements. 
  6. Refunds (after deducting a 15% bank and administration fee) will only be given if a place is cancelled at least 6 weeks before the start date of the course.
  7. A course participant can be substituted at any time before the start of the course. 
  8. We reserve the right to cancel any course without liability other than a refund of the full course fee. 
  9. Unfortunately, we cannot assist with VISA application. 
  10. The courses are designed for biologists and we will only discuss concepts; no detailed mathematics. As such, these courses are  less suitable for statisticians who wish to learn all the mathematical details.  

Calendar  

The calendar below shows where we have been, are and will be.

 

Past, present and future courses

Here is a list of past, present and future courses. We have seen a lot of people and it was (is) great fun! 

2010 

2009

2008

2007

2006 - 2002