Statistics courses

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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, Finland, Lithuania). From the west (Ireland) to the east (Bulgaria). We have also been in the United Arabic Emirates and Mexico, and in the extreme south, Argentina and New Zealand.

All in all we have educated about 5000 ecologist. We have revisited some institutes more than 5 times. 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 (unless you are Einstein). 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

3

-

2

Basic statistics

2

-

3

Data exploration, regression, GLM and GAM

4-5

Basic stats

4

Mixed effects modeling (dealing with heterogeneity and nested data)

3-4

Course 3

5

Mixed effects modeling (dealing with heterogeneity, nested data and correlation)

4-5

Course 3

6

Analyses of zero inflated data (ZIP, ZAP, ZINB, ZANB)

3

Course 3

7

Introduction to R

3

-

8

Multivariate analysis

4-5

-

In practice people do course 3 (data exploration/regression/GLM/GAM), followed by course 4 or 5 (mixed effects modeling) six or twelve months later. We also run R courses and multivariate courses. The new module on zero inflated data will start in November 2010. A few brave institutes have organized courses 4 & 5 in 10 sequential days (to reduce our travel costs); that is possible.....but hard. 

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 Analyzing Ecological Data - Practical solutions when things get complicated. (Zuur et al., In prep), 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, e.g. in Portugal, Spain, UK or Ireland. You can also contact us to see whether a seat is available in one of the in-house 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 arrange the room and we charge per person. Hence, you do not have to fight for a training budget (except for your own participants).

However, there is a waiting list for new courses of about 12 months. But we do allow for provisional bookings that can be cancelled without penalty. Just email us if you have any questions. Here is a general course flyer.

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. In fact, they liked it so much that the European Association for Forensic Entomology will run another course during their next annual meeting. And the course instructor Elena Ieno liked it so much that she wrote a case study chapter using one of their data sets:

So yes, we can provide tailored courses, and we may like it as you can see from the chapter above.

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, etc.

Open courses in 2010 and 2011

Course Remaining seats Price
Mixed effects modeling course
17 - 21 May 2010. Coimbra, Portugal
http://www1.ci.uc.pt/imar/mixed_model/		 10 out of 20 See URL
Data exploration, linear regression, GLM & GAM
15 - 19 February 2010. Coimbra, Portugal.
http://www1.ci.uc.pt/imar/mvs_10/		 0 out of 23 See URL
A Beginner's Guide to R
15 - 16 November 2010. University of Evora, Portugal 		20 out of 25 175 Euro
An introduction to the analysis of zero inflated data (ZIP, ZINB, ZAP, ZANB)
17 - 19 November 2010. University of Evora, Portugal		 20 out of 25 325 Euro
An open 12-person zero inflation course will be given in Aberdeen (UK) towards the end of 2010, early 2011    
Data exploration, linear regression, GLM & GAM
7 - 11 February 2011. Coimbra, Portugal.		 Registration will start in September 2010 Around 500 euros per person

  *: VAT is  17.5%. 

 

More Detailed information:  

Mixed effects modeling course, Coimbra, Portugal. 17 - 21 May 2010.

Program:

 Zuur et al. (2009). Mixed effects models and extensions in ecology with R. 

Further details, registration and costs: http://www1.ci.uc.pt/imar/mixed_model/index.php

Data exploration, regression, GLM and GAM course in Coimbra, February 2010 

An introduction to R.

Analysis of zero inflated data (zero inflated and hurdle models).

Course registration

To register for a course, please contact us by email (highstat@highstat.com). We need to know: Your name and address for the invoice. Which course you wish to attend. Please read the conditions below before registering.

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. For some courses, participants will be given a personal license for the software package Brodgar. The license will be valid for a period of 1 year. 
  4. The course content might be modified or improved prior to the course start date. 
  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

Photos from courses and participants

 

Six smiling Nigerian MSc students after 40 hours statistics!

More smiling people, this time from the Marine Institute in Ireland. Note the chocolate boxes on the table. The daily rate was three boxes!

 

Not difficult to guess where this course was. Well...close....it was in Livorno.

Course attendants in Livorno, October 2005:

 

Course attendants in Faro, May 2005. Part of an EU masters degree.

In-house course at the Marine Institute in Newport, Ireland. April 2005.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Course instructor and local friends.

One of the course instructors (Dr. Alain Zuur) climbing the Pyramid of the Sun, Theotihuacán, Mexico. Course at UNAM, Mexico City. March 2005.

Lithuania, July 2005.

 

Participants of the R course in Newburgh, UK. January 2005.

 

Here are some pictures made by Dr. Bert Brinkman, who attended the GLM-GAM course in April 2006 and the multivariate course with Prof. Ian Jolliffe in May 2006. The link will guide you to his own website. 

http://home.planet.nl/~brin3396/Foto/PhotoIndex.html