The NC TraCS Biostatistics Seminar Series helps clinical and translational researchers collaborate more effectively with consulting biostatisticians by building deeper understanding of key statistical concepts and methods. Researchers then are better able to (1) evaluate relevance of the concept or method for research aim(s) definition and choice of study design; and (2) properly interpret the results of data analysis.

Almost all grant applications require a statistical power analysis. In this seminar, Todd Schwartz, DrPH, will explain the basics of what power analysis is, how it works, and how to conduct one.

Schwartz is a professor in the department of Biostatistics at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. He works collaboratively with the UNC School of Nursing (joint faculty appointment), the UNC Thurston Arthritis Research Center (Co-Director of the NIAMS-funded Methodology Core) and the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy (adjunct faculty appointment). Much of his efforts are focused on supporting various projects across these units with regard to their biostatistical aspects, including consultation on design, conduct, analysis and dissemination. He also has published on innovative pedagogical methods, including the ‘flipped’ classroom.

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Extracting Data from the Web: Web Scraping Using R

This 3 hour course will be offered via Zoom. Attendance is required as the course will not be recorded.

Sometimes you need to analyze data that is only available as a web page. This course will introduce you to extracting structured data from web pages, also known as “scraping” the pages. We will use the R programming language. The first portion of the course will introduce basic HTML, CSS selectors, Developer Tools in Google Chrome, and the R packages used for web scraping. The second portion will consist of a hands-on exercise scraping data from a real web page. After this course, you should be able to scrape data from most web pages you encounter in your research.

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NC BERD Seminar: Introduction to BERD biostatistical services at Wake Forest University

This session will describe the biostatistical services offered by the BERD program at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine Clinical and Translational Science Institute.

Presenter: Greg Russell, MS
Sr Biostatistician, Biostatistics and Data Science, Wake Forest University School of Medicine

This event is hosted by Wake Forest and being cross-promoted by the NC BERD Consortium, a collaboration of the CTSA-funded BERD cores at UNC-Chapel Hill, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and Duke University School of Medicine.

Introduction to Qualtrics

Qualtrics is a powerful browser-based web-survey tool. It is available to all UNC-Chapel Hill faculty, staff, and students, for UNC-related projects. Qualtrics allows users to build complex surveys, distribute them, and analyze the responses all from one place. This course covesr basic Qualtrics functions including creating some of the most common question types, programming display and skip logic, an introduction to “survey flow”, distributing surveys with an anonymous link vs survey mailer, creating and uploading contact lists, project collaboration and creating groups, adding content to Libraries, and downloading data.

This is an introductory course and will not cover use of the online analysis tools within Qualtrics. Please note, this is a hands-on course. All participants are required to create a Qualtrics account before the course.

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This online training session will provide an introduction to qualitative research methods. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and share experiences conducting qualitative research.

Topics:

• Differences between quantitative and qualitative research
• Qualitative research methodologies
• Strategies for qualitative data collection
• Methods of qualitative data analysis

Presenters:
MaryBeth Grewe, MPH
Engagement and Qualitative Research Specialist
NC TraCS Institute

Simone Frank, MPH
Community Engagement and Outreach Specialist
NC TraCS Institute

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Capturing Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) in Survey Research

This course will be offered over one afternoon via Zoom only. Attendance is required as the course will not be recorded.

This short course will provide participants with a broad overview of considerations and approaches for capturing sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in survey research. This includes examining the current best practices and approaches, and considerations for sampling and other key design considerations when researching these populations. The workshop is intended to give participants an opportunity to better understand the various current approaches to measuring SOGI, and hands-on practice developing responsive best-practice versions of SOGI questions for their own research needs.

Topics:

• The (in)consistency of including SOGI items in research
• Reviewing national and state approaches to SOGI data collection
• The components of sexual orientation and gender identity
• Measuring SOGI together, and separately
• Considerations when measuring SOGI minorities among other minority groups
• Thinking of SOGI as a not-so-sensitive answer, but potentially a sensitive question
• Moving beyond binaries in response options
• Developing fit-for-purpose SOGI questions for unique sub-populations or survey needs
• Resources for SOGI best-practices and emerging research

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The DEVICE Trial: An Embedded, Pragmatic Trial of Emergency Airway Management

This NIH Collaboratory Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds features:

Matthew Prekker, MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
Hennepin County Medical Center
University of Minnesota Medical School

Jonathan Casey, MD, MSc
Assistant Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Director, Coordinating Center, Pragmatic Critical Care Research Group

Learn More

NC BERD Seminar: Machine Learning for Precise Diagnostics and Therapeutics

The Carter Lab develops and applies computational approaches to aid the interpretation of genetic variation and to advance precision cancer medicine. A major focus of the lab is on joint analysis of tumor and inherited genomes to uncover the role of genetic background in shaping cancer risk, somatic tumor evolution and therapeutic response. Her recent work investigates how the inherited immune system affects tumor genome evolution and the characteristics of the tumor immune microenvironment to identify opportunities and barriers for immunotherapy.

Speaker:
Hannah Carter, MEng, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Medicine, Division of Genomics and Precision Medicine
University of California at San Diego

This event is sponsored by Duke University Departments of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CBB) and Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, the Duke Center for Genomic and Computational Biology (GCB), the Precision Genomics Collaboratory, and the Duke University School of Medicine. It is being cross-promoted by the North Carolina BERD Consortium (Duke University School of Medicine, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest School of Medicine).

Virtual Public Meeting on Good Clinical Practice: Considerations for Clinical Trials with Decentralized or Pragmatic Features

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in collaboration with the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA, will convene international experts in the conduct of clinical trials with pragmatic or decentralized features. Clinical trials with streamlined protocols that are embedded in existing health care infrastructure (often referred to as pragmatic trials), and trials with decentralized processes have the potential to generate evidence more efficiently while minimizing the burden on participants.

Representatives from the research community will share their experiences conducting clinical trials with pragmatic or decentralized features. The two-day virtual public meeting will include presentations and moderated discussion to provide a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges of conducting trials with these innovative design features. Learnings from the meetings will inform the development of responsive policies and guidelines that encourage innovation, while protecting participants and safeguarding the reliability of trial results.

You can contribute to the discussion. Share your questions when you register, and as many as possible will be included in the discussion.

The meeting agenda is available and will be updated as more information is provided. Full recordings of both sessions will be available after the meeting along with the complete slide deck and transcript.

Register

Virtual Public Meeting on Good Clinical Practice: Considerations for Clinical Trials with Decentralized or Pragmatic Features

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in collaboration with the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA, will convene international experts in the conduct of clinical trials with pragmatic or decentralized features. Clinical trials with streamlined protocols that are embedded in existing health care infrastructure (often referred to as pragmatic trials), and trials with decentralized processes have the potential to generate evidence more efficiently while minimizing the burden on participants.

Representatives from the research community will share their experiences conducting clinical trials with pragmatic or decentralized features. The two-day virtual public meeting will include presentations and moderated discussion to provide a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges of conducting trials with these innovative design features. Learnings from the meetings will inform the development of responsive policies and guidelines that encourage innovation, while protecting participants and safeguarding the reliability of trial results.

You can contribute to the discussion. Share your questions when you register, and as many as possible will be included in the discussion.

The meeting agenda is available and will be updated as more information is provided. Full recordings of both sessions will be available after the meeting along with the complete slide deck and transcript.

Register

AAP-SPROUT Tele-inpatient ECHO: Virtual inpatient subspecialty consults

The American Academy of Pediatrics is recruiting hospitalists, pediatricians, and other health professionals to be a part of the SPROUT (Supporting Pediatric Research on Outcomes and Utilization of Telehealth) Tele-inpatient ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes). This ECHO, in partnership with the SPROUT-CTSA Network, will serve as a forum for increasing knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy regarding effective strategies and best practices related to telehealth in the hospital setting.

Project ECHO® is an innovative hub and spoke program, designed to create knowledge networks by connecting health care providers with an expert team through a tele-mentoring program using brief lectures and case‐based presentations. This ECHO, in partnership with the SPROUT-CTSA Network, will serve as a forum for increasing knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy regarding effective strategies and best practices related to telehealth in the hospital setting.

The AAP-SPROUT Tele-inpatient ECHO will meet monthly September 2023 through February 2024 at at 12 PM ET on the following dates: September 13, October 11, November 15, December 13, January 10, and February 14. Participants are eligible to claim CME/MOC 2 credits.

September 13, 2023 topic: Virtual inpatient subspecialty consults | Presenter: Christina Olson, MD | Facilitator: Jordan Vaughn, MD, FAAP

Questions? Email Robinn Yu, Program Manager of ECHO Initiatives, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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This project was supported in part by NIH/ NCATS SPROUT-CTSA Collaborative Telehealth Network Grant Number U01TR002626. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

The Interdisciplinary Nutrition Sciences Symposium (INSS) is an annual translational nutrition science conference. The theme for 2023 is Obesity and the Brain Across the Life Course.

This conference will address the critical need to establish rigorous interdisciplinary and translational approaches in the context of nutrition and obesity to effectively prevent and treat a variety of physiological outcomes as they relate to aging and the brain.

Scientific themes:

• Epidemiology of Aging, Obesity, and the Brain
• Gut-Brain Axis in Obesity and Aging
• The Brain-Inflammation Connection
• How Can Transitional Geroscience Impact the Aging Brain
• Obesity, Cognitive Function, and Interventions

Learn more at the INSS conference website.

register

Strategies To Ensure Completion Of The Doctoral Dissertation

The dissertation is one of the most pivotal components of doctoral programs in higher education. Yet, this is the obstacle that doctoral students have the most difficulty overcoming. This workshop will present proven strategies for mapping out a dissertation completion plan in any discipline. Workshop participants will learn how to develop relational success with the dissertation chair and committee, identify and delimit the dissertation topic, undertake a disciplined approach to the review of literature and become familiar with the essential chapter development of the dissertation. The workshop program will share specific academic practices that successful doctoral students employed to complete their dissertations on time.

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This interactive online workshop will focus on semi-structured interviewing, a data collection method used in qualitative research. Participants will have the opportunity to practice developing interview questions and using interviewing skills.

Topics:

• Basics of semi-structured interviews
• Development of interview questions and probes
• Interviewing skills
• Considerations for conducting virtual interviews.

Presenters:
MaryBeth Grewe, MPH
Engagement and Qualitative Research Specialist
NC TraCS Institute

Simone Frank, MPH
Community Engagement and Outreach Specialist
NC TraCS Institute

Register

AI Health Virtual Seminar: Real-world Applications of AI Chatbots with ChatGPT

Join Duke AI Health for an engaging presentation on the transformative power of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the form of Chatbots. Designed for individuals with little to no experience in using AI Chatbots, this event aims to share valuable insights with a broad community, both at Duke and beyond. This talk will focus on leveraging ChatGPT, a cutting-edge language model developed by OpenAI, to automate mundane tasks.

Stephen Toback, Assistant Director of Academic Media Production and Engineering will showcase real-world applications of ChatGPT, including prompt engineering and refinement, practical implications, and security and privacy considerations. Don't miss this opportunity to learn about the fascinating world of AI Chatbots and connect with a vibrant community of innovators, researchers, and enthusiasts. And yes, this description was drafted by ChatGPT!

Speaker:
Stephen Toback
Media Architect/Senior Producer
Academic Media Engineering & Production, Duke Office of Information Technology

Host:
Shelley Rusincovitch, MMCi
Managing Director, Duke AI Health

This event is sponsored by Duke AI Health; the Duke University Departments of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, Computer Science, and Electrical and Computer Engineering; the Duke Center for Computational Thinking; CTSI CREDO; the Duke University Office of Information Technology (OIT); and the Pratt School of Engineering. It is being cross-promoted by the North Carolina BERD Consortium (Duke University School of Medicine, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest School of Medicine).

The Interdisciplinary Nutrition Sciences Symposium (INSS) is an annual translational nutrition science conference. The theme for 2023 is Obesity and the Brain Across the Life Course.

This conference will address the critical need to establish rigorous interdisciplinary and translational approaches in the context of nutrition and obesity to effectively prevent and treat a variety of physiological outcomes as they relate to aging and the brain.

Scientific themes:

• Epidemiology of Aging, Obesity, and the Brain
• Gut-Brain Axis in Obesity and Aging
• The Brain-Inflammation Connection
• How Can Transitional Geroscience Impact the Aging Brain
• Obesity, Cognitive Function, and Interventions

Learn more at the INSS conference website.

register

Academic Publishing 101: From Idea to Article...and Beyond

This course will be held online via Zoom. Registration is required to secure your spot. This course will NOT be recorded – attendance is required.

Although graduate school teaches you many things, many PhD students complete their dissertations having never been fully trained in academic publishing. How does academic publishing actually work? Where should you publish your research? How do you actually get papers accepted in strong academic journals? In this talk, we will discuss several major ideas in academic publishing (focusing on the social sciences). We will discuss:

• professional integrity and ethics
• the role of academic conversations and communities as a guide for publication forums and journal selections
• the mechanics of publishing in journals and other forums (including outlining, writing style, journal, legal, and newspaper submissions, the peer review process, revisions, and corresponding with editors)
• acceptance and all that follows.

Register

Effect of Financial Incentives and Default Options on Food Choices of Adults With Low Income in Online Retail Settings

This NIH Collaboratory Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds features:

Pasquale Rummo, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor
NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Learn More

The UNC Center for Health Equity Research’s Health Equity Research Intensive (HERI) brings together diverse stakeholders invested in health equity to learn how to develop, implement and evaluate more inclusive and impactful health equity research projects. HERI provides sessions centered on partnership and engagement with innovative approaches and methods. HERI's primary goal is to help participants understand their role in addressing important questions related to health disparities and health equity. Participating in HERI will equip attendees to effectively center equity in their research.

Agenda and presentation times vary by day. For more information, visit: Health Equity Research Intensive or the Whova Agenda.

Research Capacity Building Grants Program – to support research infrastructure in Southeastern NC

The Research Advisory Council (RAC), a, joint committee composed of research leaders from Novant Health, Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center (NH-NHRMC), the University of North Carolina Health Care System (UNC Health), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine (UNC SOM) has announced plans for Capacity Building Grants.

The purpose is to build capacity and facilitate human subjects research in the Southeastern Coastal region of North Carolina. For more information, visit tracs.unc.edu/services/pilot-program/research-advisory-council-awards.

With an explicit focus on building sustainable and high impact research teams focused on southeastern coastal North Carolina health concerns and populations, “Research Capacity Building Grants” of up to $500k total expenditures over 2-3 years will be awarded in 2024.

View/download RFA

Contact Crystal Walker (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) for more information or to submit questions.

The UNC Center for Health Equity Research’s Health Equity Research Intensive (HERI) brings together diverse stakeholders invested in health equity to learn how to develop, implement and evaluate more inclusive and impactful health equity research projects. HERI provides sessions centered on partnership and engagement with innovative approaches and methods. HERI's primary goal is to help participants understand their role in addressing important questions related to health disparities and health equity. Participating in HERI will equip attendees to effectively center equity in their research.

Agenda and presentation times vary by day. For more information, visit: Health Equity Research Intensive or the Whova Agenda.

Introduction to ATLAS.ti Part 1

This short course will demonstrate the capabilities of the PC version of ATLAS.ti (version 23), a qualitative analysis software program for coding and interpreting qualitative data. ATLAS.ti also provides numerous options for attaching memos and comments to text segments, documents, and codes. We will demonstrate how to import textual data, create and apply codes, write memos, create diagrams, and examine the hierarchical and relational connections among codes. We will also discuss special analysis features, such as the code co-occurrence matrix, the codes-variables table, and Sankey diagrams.

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AI Health Lunch and Learn: Introduction to Large Language Models

Large language models (LLM) are powering amazing recent innovations in generative AI such as ChatGPT. Although their capabilities may seem like magic, behind these technologies are concepts that anyone can understand. In this lunch and learn, Larry Carin will provide a math-free, intuitive explanation of how LLMs work.

Speaker:
Larry Carin, PhD
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University

This event is sponsored by Duke AI Health; the Duke University Departments of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, Computer Science, and Electrical and Computer Engineering; the Duke Center for Computational Thinking; +DataScience; and the Pratt School of Engineering. It is being cross-promoted by the North Carolina BERD Consortium (Duke University School of Medicine, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest School of Medicine).

The UNC Center for Health Equity Research’s Health Equity Research Intensive (HERI) brings together diverse stakeholders invested in health equity to learn how to develop, implement and evaluate more inclusive and impactful health equity research projects. HERI provides sessions centered on partnership and engagement with innovative approaches and methods. HERI's primary goal is to help participants understand their role in addressing important questions related to health disparities and health equity. Participating in HERI will equip attendees to effectively center equity in their research.

Agenda and presentation times vary by day. For more information, visit: Health Equity Research Intensive or the Whova Agenda.

NC BERD Seminar: Discrete choice experiments and patient outcomes

This introductory-level session will provide a methodologic overview of the discrete choice experiment (DCE) methodology and study design types, what is involved in the design of a DCE, statistical assumptions, and more.

Presenter: Chris Gillette, PhD
Associate Professor, PA Studies, Wake Forest University School of Medicine

This event is hosted by Wake Forest and being cross-promoted by the NC BERD Consortium, a collaboration of the CTSA-funded BERD cores at UNC-Chapel Hill, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and Duke University School of Medicine.

This interactive online workshop will provide an introduction to focus groups, a data collection method used in qualitative research. Attendees will also observe or participate in a mini "mock" virtual focus group session.

Topics:

• Focus group methodology
• Considerations for planning a focus group
• Development of focus group discussion guides
• Focus group facilitation skills
• Tips for conducting virtual focus groups

Presenters:
MaryBeth Grewe, MPH
Engagement and Qualitative Research Specialist
NC TraCS Institute

Simone Frank, MPH
Community Engagement and Outreach Specialist
NC TraCS Institute

Register

Introduction to MAXQDA

This course will cover the features of MAXQDA (version 2022), a software program that supports qualitative data analysis and helps users systematically code, evaluate, and interpret textual data. Its capabilities include coding, memo writing, matrix building, and diagramming. We will demonstrate importing data, applying codes, using demographic variables, running reports, generating analytic matrices, and using other specialized analysis features.

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UNC NRP September 2023 Education Session: EPIC Updates

Please join the UNC Network for Research Professionals and Stephanie Deen, Epic@UNC Research Program Manager, for Epic Updates.

Objectives:

• Cover new features coming to Epic for Research
• Reminders of key Epic workflows

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NC BERD Seminar: Generalized Pairwise Comparisons as a Statistical Method for Patient-Centric Medicine

The era of "precision medicine" is in full swing. Precision medicine, which aims at giving the right treatment to the right patient at the right time, takes advantage of predictive biomarkers to deliver targeted drugs. This is particularly important in oncology, given the high stakes of treatment benefit vs. treatment harm. Precision medicine may be taken one step further if individual patient preferences are factored into decision-making to reach what might be truly called "patient-centric medicine". Allowing patients to make individualized treatment decisions is currently done informally, since no statistical methods integrate several indicators of efficacy and toxicity into a single, quantitative measure.

A new statistical method, named "generalized pairwise comparisons" (GPC), allows formal decisions based on the totality of the available information in a rigorous way. Using GPC, all efficacy, toxicity and quality of life data from patients enrolled in clinical trials comparing competing interventions can be used to analyse any number of prioritized outcomes of any type (binary, continuous, time to event, etc.), possibly with thresholds of clinical relevance for continuous or ordered outcomes. The method compares all possible pairs of patients formed by taking one patient from the experimental group and one patient from the control group of a randomized trial. We have proposed a new measure of the overall treatment effect, called the "Net Treatment Benefit" (NTB), as the difference between the probability that a patient taken at random in the experimental group has a better outcome than a patient taken at random in the control group. The NTB is an absolute measure that directly addresses patient-centric questions about the probabilities of benefits and harms from treatment. As such, the GPC method can be used to individualize treatment choices. Other measures of treatment benefit include the win ratio, which has received a lot of attention in cardiovascular trials, and the win odds. The general properties of GPC and the associated measures of treatment effect will be discussed, and illustrated in actual applications.

Speaker:
Marc Buyse, ScD
Chief Scientific Officer and Founder
International Drug Development Institute (IDDI)

This event is sponsored by Duke University Department Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. It is being cross-promoted by the North Carolina BERD Consortium (Duke University School of Medicine, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest School of Medicine).

Community Health Workers in Early Childhood Well-Child Care

This NIH Collaboratory Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds features:

Tumaini Rucker Coker, MD, MBA
Professor of Pediatrics
Division Head for General Pediatrics
University of Washington Department of Pediatrics
Seattle Children’s Hospital

Learn More

Places, Environments and Health Symposium: Data, Methods and Applications of Geospatial Information to Integrate Biology and Social Context for Health

This event will bring together speakers from across the country and distinguished researchers within North Carolina for interdisciplinary discussions to explore the nexus of data, methods and applications of geospatial information that inform biology and social context for health. In-person and virtual options are available, with lunch provided for in-person attendees.

This symposium is co-sponsored by the UNC Gillings School for Global Public Health, the UNC Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility, and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Learn more at Places, Environments and Health Symposium 2023.

register

Integrated Mixed Methods: Bridging Qualitative and Quantitative Methods and Results

This course will take place over three mornings (9/25/23, 9/27/23, and 9/29/23), 2.75 hours per morning, and will be offered via Zoom. Attendance is required as the course will not be recorded.

Integrated mixed methods are used to answer questions that necessitate more than one method to achieve a holistic understanding. Combining qualitative and quantitative approaches can enhance conversations about theory, practice, and/or policy. This demanding paradigm requires knowledge, skill, and expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as the art of intentionally integrating the approaches to and findings from each mode of inquiry.

This course focuses on strategies, tips, and best practices to accomplish integration in accessible and effective ways, including:
- Rationales to guide decision-making related to study design and execution
- Conceptual, theoretical, and/or logic models as roadmaps to set the stage for and guide integration
- Analytic strategies that advance frameworks and dynamic processes of connecting, building, merging, embedding, and bridging

Register

This online training will provide an introduction to qualitative data analysis, focusing on content/thematic analysis. The session will cover the basics of qualitative data analysis and steps in the analysis process, including: transcribing, memoing, codebook development and coding, exploring content areas or themes, and interpreting and communicating findings. Participants will have the opportunity to practice developing and applying codes.

Please note: We will not be demonstrating how to use qualitative data analysis software during this session.

Presenters:

MaryBeth Grewe, MPH
Engagement and Qualitative Research Specialist
NC TraCS Institute

Simone Frank, MPH
Community Engagement and Outreach Specialist
NC TraCS Institute

Register

This 2-part (9/26/23 & 9/28/23), 4-hour course will be offered via Zoom, over two mornings. Attendance is required as the course will not be recorded.

In this course, participants will learn how to keep track of the code they use in their research using the version control system Git and the collaboration platform GitHub. Git allows you to keep track of changes to your code, easily revert to previous versions, and “tag” versions of code used in publications so that the exact code used can be retrieved at a later date. GitHub allows Git users to collaborate with each other on projects by managing simultaneous changes to the same files and allowing users to review and discuss each others’ code. Git and Github are applicable to any text-based programming or analysis language, including R, Python, Stata, Julia, and others.

Participants should create a github account at github.com and install git prior to the class. Windows users can download git at https://git-scm.com/download/win; there are multiple installation options, the first link is fine. Mac users can install git by opening the terminal application (in Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal) and typing “git version” (no quotes) and pressing enter. If git is not installed, you will be prompted to install it.

Register

Introduction to Multilevel Modeling is a two-day (9/27/23 and 9/29/23) course focused on the application and interpretation of multilevel models, also known as hierarchical linear models and mixed models, for the analysis of nested data structures.

Nesting can arise from hierarchical data structures (e.g., siblings nested within family; patients nested within therapist), longitudinal data structures (repeated measures nested within individual), or both (repeated measures nested within patient and patient nested within therapist).

It is well known that the analysis of nested data structures using traditional general linear models (e.g., ANOVA or regression) is flawed, oftentimes substantially so: Tests of significance are likely biased and within- and between-group effects are confounded with one another. All of these limitations can be addressed within the multilevel model.

This workshop provides an introduction to the application of multilevel models with nested data, including software implementation in SAS, SPSS and Stata.

Register

Integrated Mixed Methods: Bridging Qualitative and Quantitative Methods and Results

This course will take place over three mornings (9/25/23, 9/27/23, and 9/29/23), 2.75 hours per morning, and will be offered via Zoom. Attendance is required as the course will not be recorded.

Integrated mixed methods are used to answer questions that necessitate more than one method to achieve a holistic understanding. Combining qualitative and quantitative approaches can enhance conversations about theory, practice, and/or policy. This demanding paradigm requires knowledge, skill, and expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as the art of intentionally integrating the approaches to and findings from each mode of inquiry.

This course focuses on strategies, tips, and best practices to accomplish integration in accessible and effective ways, including:
- Rationales to guide decision-making related to study design and execution
- Conceptual, theoretical, and/or logic models as roadmaps to set the stage for and guide integration
- Analytic strategies that advance frameworks and dynamic processes of connecting, building, merging, embedding, and bridging

Register

This one-day course will be offered via Zoom only. Course schedule is 9:00am – 3:00pm, with a 1 hour lunch and (2) 10-minute breaks. Attendance is required as it will not be recorded.

This course features Dynamic Narrative Inquiry – theory and principles for narrative research design and analysis drawing on the richness of expressive language. With this approach to qualitative inquiry, researchers can build on communication in daily life where diverse practices for sharing experience, making sense of experience, and imagining social change occur in personal narratives, sociocultural communications, and institutional policies.

This course involves a sequence of presentations and practical workshops with narrative analysis strategies applicable to small or large studies that sample verbal and/or visual discourse. We begin with an introduction to dynamic narrative inquiry, followed by modules with three analysis strategies that yield findings to a wide range of relevant social science research questions. Using examples from prior published studies, rationales and methodology are presented, including character mapping (to identify meaning in narrative actors, actions, and relationships); plot analysis (to identify how narrative structures express logics and intentions); and values analysis (to identify speaker/author/ purposes). The final hour of the day is devoted to discussing course participants’ insights from the workshops and implications for future research, practice, and policy.

Register

This 2-part (9/26/23 & 9/28/23), 4-hour course will be offered via Zoom, over two mornings. Attendance is required as the course will not be recorded.

In this course, participants will learn how to keep track of the code they use in their research using the version control system Git and the collaboration platform GitHub. Git allows you to keep track of changes to your code, easily revert to previous versions, and “tag” versions of code used in publications so that the exact code used can be retrieved at a later date. GitHub allows Git users to collaborate with each other on projects by managing simultaneous changes to the same files and allowing users to review and discuss each others’ code. Git and Github are applicable to any text-based programming or analysis language, including R, Python, Stata, Julia, and others.

Participants should create a github account at github.com and install git prior to the class. Windows users can download git at https://git-scm.com/download/win; there are multiple installation options, the first link is fine. Mac users can install git by opening the terminal application (in Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal) and typing “git version” (no quotes) and pressing enter. If git is not installed, you will be prompted to install it.

Register

AI Health Virtual Seminar: 7 Problems Facing Artificial Intelligence for Health (and what’s being done about them)

Artificial Intelligence has been promoted as the key to solving key problems in healthcare, but the challenges facing us are complex and sometimes intractable - with potential even to bring harm. In this 1-hour seminar, we'll discuss this landscape at a high level, including a history of unrealistic expectations, overhype that too often permeates this space, serious issues of bias and fairness, and other areas. We'll discuss illustrations and case studies drawn from the current scientific literature, informed by AI Health's longstanding Weekly Roundup of news and publications in AI. We'll also talk about the researchers and approaches that are informing responses to these problems, and the opportunities that exist to actively develop ethical and equitable data science. This session is free and open to anyone in the world.

Speaker:
Jonathan McCall, MS
Communications Director
Duke AI Health

Host:
Shelley Rusincovitch, MMCi
Managing Director
Duke AI Health

This event is sponsored by Duke AI Health; the Duke University Departments of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, Computer Science, and Electrical and Computer Engineering; the Duke Center for Computational Thinking; Duke CTSI; and the Pratt School of Engineering. It is being cross-promoted by the North Carolina BERD Consortium (Duke University School of Medicine, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest School of Medicine).

Introduction to Multilevel Modeling is a two-day (9/27/23 and 9/29/23) course focused on the application and interpretation of multilevel models, also known as hierarchical linear models and mixed models, for the analysis of nested data structures.

Nesting can arise from hierarchical data structures (e.g., siblings nested within family; patients nested within therapist), longitudinal data structures (repeated measures nested within individual), or both (repeated measures nested within patient and patient nested within therapist).

It is well known that the analysis of nested data structures using traditional general linear models (e.g., ANOVA or regression) is flawed, oftentimes substantially so: Tests of significance are likely biased and within- and between-group effects are confounded with one another. All of these limitations can be addressed within the multilevel model.

This workshop provides an introduction to the application of multilevel models with nested data, including software implementation in SAS, SPSS and Stata.

Register

Integrated Mixed Methods: Bridging Qualitative and Quantitative Methods and Results

This course will take place over three mornings (9/25/23, 9/27/23, and 9/29/23), 2.75 hours per morning, and will be offered via Zoom. Attendance is required as the course will not be recorded.

Integrated mixed methods are used to answer questions that necessitate more than one method to achieve a holistic understanding. Combining qualitative and quantitative approaches can enhance conversations about theory, practice, and/or policy. This demanding paradigm requires knowledge, skill, and expertise in quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as the art of intentionally integrating the approaches to and findings from each mode of inquiry.

This course focuses on strategies, tips, and best practices to accomplish integration in accessible and effective ways, including:
- Rationales to guide decision-making related to study design and execution
- Conceptual, theoretical, and/or logic models as roadmaps to set the stage for and guide integration
- Analytic strategies that advance frameworks and dynamic processes of connecting, building, merging, embedding, and bridging

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Navigating the Use of Patient-Reported Outcomes in Research and Practice: The PROTEUS Consortium

This NIH Collaboratory Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds features:

Claire Snyder, PhD
Professor
Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine and Public Health

Norah Crossnohere, PhD
Assistant Professor
Ohio State University College of Medicine

Anne Schuster, PhD
Research Scientist
Ohio State University College of Medicine

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