Past events 2013

This is an activity-based workshop led by theatre professionals whose expertise is in helping the speaker effectively communicate the importance and relevance of the work and the core message in the talk. Repetition is a key aspect of the training so that participants can strengthen the narrative, the emotional tone, and the physicality of the talk in order to def ine and support the speaker’s own dynamic style. Description The seminar provides participants the opportunity to perfect their public-speaking skills. Constructive feedback from the trainer and group members as well as videotaping give the speaker a healthy amount of input while perfecting public-speaking skills. Participants will be required to prepare a 3 to 5 minute pitch or overview of their work incorporating also the use of a slide. This will provide a basis for applying the practical aims of the workshop. Throughout the three day workshop, participants will be guided through interactive exercises to improve nonverbal communication, improve the ability to listen and react generously, and to integrate focusing techniques which empower the speaker. There will be two videotaping sessions (on the second and third days) in this advanced workshop, as well as further in depth role play regarding the topic of dealing with challenging Q&A sessions. Contents in brief - Concisely introducing yourself: practice your “pitch” - Engaging the audience in one’s talk - Aff irming the strengths and individual style of the speaker - Improving body language - Effectively promoting oneself - Develop strong tactics for effective communication - Receiving video-feedback Methods - voice and body techniques - partner work/role-play - language practice and analysis - improvisation, videotaping and feedback [more]

This two-day workshop enables life scientists to communicate their research clearly and effectively. Through numerous writing examples and relevant exercises as well as class discussions, participants learn how to describe their work in a flowing narrative with a clear “take home message”. The interactive nature of the workshop means participants benefit not only from the experience of both instructors but also from the ideas of other participants. Additionally, writing samples from each participant are edited by the class instructors. The workshop teaches participants not only to tell the story of their research but also to direct their research using the writing process. [more]

This Summer School is not an online course but a "real-world" course which includes hand-on exercises ranging from land cover and species distribution analysis to modeling of animal movement. Talks by conservationists and field work (GPS tracking) will be part of the Summer School as well. The analysis of remote sensing data, the linkages with in-situ (animal movement) data is complex but highly relevant. The required methods and approaches to combine animal movement with remote sensing data for conservation will be tought during the AniMove Summer School in August 2013 This applied Summer School focuses on addressing conservation issues using remote sensing and modelling. Only Open Source software will be used to allow participants to apply them after the Summer School as well. Programs learnt will be: R (raster, sp, dismo, rgdal etc.), GRASS (with add-ons like r.pi), QGIS. [more]

Evaluation of the IMPRS for Organismal Biology [more]

The annual Grand Challenges in ... Symposium focus this year on Communication in Social Communities. [more]

Awarding the best IMPRS student paper of 2013 [more]

The Seewiesen based labs will present their labs, their research focus and methods. [more]

introduction in manuscript-writing course. Participants are expected to work on their own manuscripts during the course. [more]

Day 1: Indroduction Introduction o experimental design theory (difference between experiment and observation, confounding, importance of randomisation, types of experimental designs, implications for data analysis, power; practical: randomization with the software R, simple power calculations); Day 2: Applications - Each participant is asked to send a description of one planned experiment (or one running experiment if none is planned) to steffi.vonfelten@oikostat.ch until 30. September 2013 (e.g., drawing of the spatial layout and text description, what measurements are taken and when?). Course participants will present the design of their own experiments. Each experimental design will be discussed in class and will also receive some feedback by the course teacher. Prerequisite for participation: basic knowledge of statistics and the software package R would be an advantage but is not absolutely required. [more]

This course will allow for one week of intense introduction in R a powerful opensource programming environment widely used in scientific research. We will begin with understanding how we can wrok with R to make our lifes as biologists from a wider range of subdisciplines easier. Consequently, we will want to undestand how data can be mined, rearranged and basic visualisations made. This is not a statistics course, it is intended to give a general all purpose introduction in R, from where further exploration can be achieved without the usually steep initial learning curve. [more]

Communication and Leadership Skills in Academia [more]

Concisely introducing yourself: practice your “pitch”, Engaging the audience in one’s talk, Affirming the strengths and individual style of the speaker, Improving body language, Effectively promoting oneself, Develop strong tactics for effective communication, Receiving video-feedback [more]

Day 1: Binomial model (refreshing LM and LMM, introduction Bayesian data analysis, logistic regression, binomial model, tests, model assumptions, overdispersion, predictions); Day 2: Poisson model (tests, model assumptions, overdispersion, predictions, depending on participants wishes: zero-inflation, mixture models); Day 3: GLMM (including random effects, glmer-function and MCMCglmm-function, depending on participants wishes: introduction to WinBUGS and further mixture models); Day 4: work on own data and presentations [more]