As of June 9, 2021
The courses below are currently scheduled as live, in-person courses in Baltimore, Maryland. AFS will notify registrants of any course schedule changes due to travel restrictions. Courses will be added to the schedule as additional speakers confirm their participation; details will be added to the Annual Meeting website.
Friday, November 5
8:00 am – 5:00 pm
This hands-on, live-coding course is a comprehensive introduction to R and RStudio, including basic computational concepts (e.g. directory navigation), introductory programming concepts (e.g., functions, arguments, data objects), and best practices of applying these skills (commenting code, data organization, workflow). Participants will be introduced to common and practical applications of R, including importing and exploring data frames, wrangling data in {dplyr}, visualizing data with {ggplot2}, and the well-known challenges of dealing with dates and times in R using {lubridate}. Sequential coding exercises will allow learners to build upon and enforce their mental models and encourage pair programming, and frequent formative assessments in the form of hands-on coding activities (faded examples, MCQs, Parsons problems) will be used to identify and correct misconceptions and ensure that the workshop pace is appropriate for the learners.
Instructor:
Danielle Quinn
This course will serve as an introduction to using spatial data in a geographic information system platform. Participants will learn fundamental concepts of using geographic information and gain experience applying those concepts in hands-on exercises to accomplish real world tasks that might be conducted by a fisheries biologist.
Participants will learn how to create maps using best practices; locate and read metadata; use existing datasets; create new datasets by digitizing or incorporating field-collected spatial information; join tabular data to spatial data; use geoprocessing methods to summarize metrics; and carry out other GIS operations useful for fisheries biologists.
Instructors:
Hadley Boehm
University of Missouri
Clinton Morgeson
Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources
Jodi Whittier
University of Missouri
Saturday, November 6
8:00 am – 5:00 pm
This course will introduce participants to advanced concepts and tools for manipulating and summarizing spatial datasets using the ArcGIS and QGIS platforms. The concepts and basis of the tools will be applicable to other GIS platforms such as program R. Topics covered include: geoprocessing, interpolation, simple geostatistics, building spatial networks, and conducting aerial image classifications. The course will be a combination of lectures and hands-on exercises using examples that might be encountered by a fisheries biologist.
Instructors:
Hadley Boehm
University of Missouri
Clinton Morgeson
Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources
Jodi Whittier
University of Missouri
This course is intended to address the major knowledge gap in proper data management for fisheries and wildlife and is applicable to anyone who collects and works with data. Some of the topics that will be covered include: data management life cycle, data management planning, data security and sharing, data validation and verification, quality assurance and quality control, types of data tools, choosing the right tool for the job, and basic relational database structure and design.
This course will provide attendees with a working knowledge of eDNA molecular diagnostics terminology and procedures. Examples showing both aquatic and terrestrial eDNA applications will be used to bring procedures to life. Additionally this course will cover Artemis, a statistical framework for contextualizing eDNA detections and as a workflow tool to estimate the effect sizes of variables on the ability to detect eDNA. Portions of the course will include a hands-on segment (if in-person) to familiarize everyone with the basic use sample collection apparatus and how to perform water filtration.
Instructor:
Gregg Schumer
Cramer Fish Sciences
Saturday, November 6
8:00 am – 12:00 pm
A brief review of core concepts will be provided, and formative assessments in the form of hands-on coding activities (faded examples, MCQs, Parsons problems) will be used identify and correct any misconceptions about best practices of data organization and utilizing basic {dplyr} functions in RStudio. From there, live coding will be used to guide participants through a series of real world examples of data wrangling challenges as they learn to apply {dplyr} functions to merge datasets, explore, clean, and filter data, reshape data frames, and visualize data in effective ways. Sequential coding exercises will allow learners to build upon and enforce their mental models and encourage pair programming. Time will also be allocated for learners to apply what they’ve learned to their own data sets and collaboratively discuss approaches and solutions to the challenges they face in their own research.
Instructor:
Danielle Quinn
Saturday, November 6
1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Live coding will be used to guide participants through the process of building a simple interactive application using a generalized template and example data relevant to fisheries research. The core elements of interactive shiny applications, the user interface and the reactive server, will be explored through discussion and hands-on coding. Reactive programming will be used to create dashboards that respond to user input in real time to generate interactive visualizations and perform analyses. Finally, increasingly complex layout components will be used to help participants design a customized user interface.
Instructor:
Danielle Quinn
Course Pricing
Member Type | Full Day Course | Half-Day Course |
|---|---|---|
Student Member | $125 | $65 |
Student Nonmember | $150 | $75 |
Early Career Professional Member | $150 | $75 |
Regular Member | $175 | $90 |
Nonmember | $250 | $150 |
Course Package Pricing for Members
AFS members registering for both courses in the GIS series (Intro to ArcGIS and Advanced ArcGIS) or all three courses in the R series (Intro to R, Intermediate R, and Intro to Rshiny) will receive a discounted price that will cover the registration of all courses in that series.
Member Type | Entire Course |
|---|---|
Student Member | $225 |
Early Career Professional Member | $275 |
Regular Member | $325 |
Meet the 2021 CE Instructors!
Additional speaker photos will be added as soon as AFS receives them!
