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What You'll Study
  • How data science principles and workflow inform ecological data management 
  • Managing ecological data with tidyverse tools 
  • Applying programming concepts (e.g., iteration) to wrangle ecological data 
  • How to efficiently work with big data for ecological applications 
  • Visualizing data using ggplot 
  • Communicating ecology with R scripts 
  • Version control (GitHub) command-line tools for file management 
  • Building reports and interactive web applications using Quarto and html (Shiny).

This course is not recommended for participants with no prior R experience. Additional learning material will be provided prior to and during the course for participants with limited previous experience.

Program Details
Dates

March 11 – May 5, 2024

Location

Virtual (asynchronous)

Available Formats

Graduate (CONS 697, 3 credits)

Professional Training (SMSC 0532, 8.2 CEUs)

Cost

Professional Training: $500.00

Deadlines

Application Deadline: February 12, 2024

Payment Deadline: Feb 26, 2024

Note that seats are filled as registrations are received and popular courses may fill well before the application deadline.

Meet the Faculty

Brian Evans
Brian S. Evans
Migratory Bird Ecologist
Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
Brian has been a researcher at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center since 2007, specializing in environment-bird interactions with a focus on the landscape ecology of Greater Washington, D.C.

Curriculum

Once data reach a certain size or complexity ecologists often struggle with managing their data. As big data increasingly becomes a component of ecological study, there is a developing need for understanding how to maintain large and complex datasets, prepare data for analysis, and develop a reproducible workflow. In this course, we will explore the management of ecological data using Program R. We will focus on the structure and linguistics of data in R, how to integrate R into a modern data science workflow, and explore how to think about ecological data in new ways. Participants will gain an in-depth understanding of the tidyverse package. Through this process, participants will develop a flexible skillset for managing and exploring data. Each lesson will consist of a lecture and guided lab activities using real world ecological applications. 

Detailed Curriculum >>

What’s Included

The total cost for professional training covers:

  • Access to all recorded lecture material, coding demonstrations, assignments and solutions
  • Access to optional weekly live sessions (Zoom) for review of weekly assignments and general Q & A with the instructor

Email SCBItraining@si.edu for additional information.

“This course changed the way I think about my data. I’m now a more effective coder, collaborator, and data manager that I was before. I wish I had taken this course before I even started my data collection!”

Course Participant 2021 online offering

“This was an excellent course!…The quality of the course materials was incredibly high and practically useful with real-world data and issues, rather than canned exercises. Even though I use R almost daily in my job as a wildlife ecologist with a conservation organization, I still learned many new things that will enhance my work. I highly recommend the course!”

Tim Fullman Senior Ecologist, The Wilderness Society (2021 online offering participant)
Take the next step toward a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity