The challenges of recruitment are known widely, and research teams are often stretched thin. This session shows how AI can help save time, reach more participants, and make study materials clearer and more engaging. Attendees will learn both the benefits and limits of AI in recruitment and retention, as well as considerations and challenges unique to academic research.

We’ll highlight practical, plain-language strategies that use Microsoft Copilot to create participant-friendly materials, simplify consent language, and reduce the burden of repetitive tasks. A real-world example from a large, currently funded randomized controlled trial will show AI tools in action—demonstrating how they streamline workflows, support retention, and free up coordinators to focus on the human side of research.

Please note: No prior experience with AI is required.

Presenters:
Ali Sora, MS
Research Project Manager, Recruitment & Retention Program
NC TraCS Institute

Edmund P. Fernandez, MA
Data Systems & Assessment Specialist, Writing Skills Development Program
SOM Dept. of Health Sciences

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Extracting Data from the Web: Web Scraping Using R

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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This course provides training on evaluating public services and programs. At the end of the course, participants will understand and be able to describe program evaluation, and how it can help you understand the basics of assessing program impact. In addition, participants will be able to identify a variety of program evaluation tools, map out a basic evaluation plan that could be used in their office, and understand how to effectively present evaluation results. At the end of the course, participants will understand and be able to describe what program evaluation is, how it focuses on success understood as outcomes, short-term and long-term impact. Throughout the workshop we will be referring to your own situation and you will be asked to apply the ideas to the program, policy or process what you want to evaluate in your own organization. The goal of the workshop is to let you leave with a solid 'take-away' of how to start planning your evaluation.

No prior experience is necessary. This course will not teach specific statistical or qualitative methods, but how to best determine which might be the best for measuring success as you have defined it.

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Bring your laptop to this hands-on workshop and learn to visualize clinical data in R and Python. We will teach you to identify, create, and use appropriate simple plots; use data visualization for exploratory data analysis and data quality assessment; and visualize temporal patterns with time series and longitudinal plots.

This workshop is intended for those who have worked with clinical data from the Carolina Data Warehouse for Health previously, or who intend to do so in the future. The workshop material will be presented in the first hour. The second hour is optional. Instructors will be available for coding support if you are interested.

In this workshop, you will learn how to:

• Identify, use, and create appropriate simple plots
• Use data visualization for exploratory data analysis
• Visualize temporal patterns with time series and longitudinal plots

To get the most out of this hands-on workshop, you should be able to do these things in either R or Python:

• Write, save, and execute code
• Load CSV file by executing provided code
• Understand file layout structure

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This workshop is co-sponsored by the Data Science and AI Academy at NC State University and the Informatics and Data Science program at NC TraCS Institute.

MS Azure is furnished by the Provost's AI Accelerator Program which the OVCR has partnered with to help drive adoption of these computational tools. This session is all about helping you get the most out of campus AI technologies to boost discovery and scholarship.

You'll walk away with a clear roadmap to kickstart your own AI projects using MS Azure's extensive catalogue of developer tools including pre-trained large-language models/reinforcement learning, computer vision, audio/natural-language processing, as well as a discussion of UNC-generated sample data. You'll hear from Microsoft Academic teams, faculty peers and data managers on strategies on picking up hands-on skills to get started.

If you are interested in presenting a demo project, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Digital Presence, Professional Impact: Leveraging LinkedIn to Network Strategically

Join the UNC Network for Research Professionals (NRP) for a hybrid education session with Justin Golding, Assistant Director of Career Education, UNC Career Center

1. Learn how to leverage LinkedIn for digital networking
2. Connect with the UNC Alumni in your industry/region
3. Create a digital brand that showcases your unique strengths

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Introduction to Implementation Science

There is a substantial gap between the development of innovations in medicine, public health, and other fields and their delivery in health care facilities, communities, and beyond. Implementation science is a field that dedicated to the study of closing this gap by scientifically identifying the factors that facilitate and impede the systematic uptake of knowledge and evidence. It includes the study of how individual, organizational and environmental behavior impact implementation effectiveness, and how to develop and test strategies to change these behaviors. This course will provide an overview of the core frameworks and methods used in implementation research and practice. Students will have opportunities to apply these principles through a case study.

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The NC TraCS Biostatistics Seminar Series is appropriate for those with a basic familiarity with statistics. These seminars introduce topics not often included in STATS 101. In this seminar, Beibo Zhao, PhD, will discuss the different kinds of experimental designs that can be used for public health research, and their pros and cons.

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Please note: This seminar will not be recorded and materials will be shared during the seminar or with documented attendees only. Attendance may be gathered from Zoom attendance reports.