Continuing Education Courses

**This course is being offered as an optional one and a half day series. Attendees may register for the Friday session, Saturday morning session, or both!**

FishPath is a decision-support process and free online tool developed by The Nature Conservancy, NOAA Fisheries, and CSIRO (Australia) to help identify fisheries-specific harvest strategy options; specifically, for effective data collection, assessment models and indicators, and systems of management measures and response to stock status. Workshop participants will be given an overview of the FishPath tool web application, including hands-on exercises so that participants can explore the potential to improve their sustainable fisheries management practices and gain comfort navigating the tool.

Instructor:
Jason Cope
NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center

Instructor Q&A:

AFS: Why are you excited to teach this class?

JC: The FishPath tool has been designed to empower the user to efficiently and objectively design harvest strategies (connecting data, stock assessments and management measures) no matter the fishery type, resource availability and/or data limitations. Interacting with the tool and talking with each user about their specific situation creates an energy fueled by hope and discovery of possibilities. I really look forward to interacting with participants, hopefully using their real situations or one’s they anticipate could benefit from Fishpath guidance.

AFS: What are some of the most important things your attendees should take away from your class?

JC: That in a short amount of time it takes to apply the FishPath a user can gain important insight into the data collection, stock assessment and management measures options that best fit their specific situation. That this tool is a powerful elicitation tool for expert opinion and organizer of current possibilities, while also outlining future options. And that it can serve as a repository of information for future research. 

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

Instructor Q&A with Hadley I. A. Boehm

AFS: Why are you excited to teach this class?

HIAB: I enjoy being part of the learning process. There are so many potential GIS applications in fisheries science, but learning a new software/program can seem daunting. I am looking forward to the opportunity to work with students and professionals who are interested in broadening their skillset to take advantage of those possibilities.

AFS: What are some of the most important things your attendees should take away from your class?

HIAB: I think a take away from this workshop will be the importance of persistence and continuing to practice (self-teach) after the class is over. We’ll be exposing participants to some basics, but there are so many possibilities once you start.

AFS: What are you most looking forward to doing at the annual meeting in Baltimore, besides teaching an awesome class?

HIAB: Seeing people in person again, of course! But, more specifically I enjoy the opportunity to both share and get feedback on the results of my own research and to learn what else others are doing. I sometimes get in my own bubble, so exposure to the variety in types of work being done out there and meeting the dedicated professionals doing it is inspiring and I always learn new things!