Survey Results

Please advise us on the Learn R course.

There have been problems with the conference calls. We have two options:
1) GotoWebinar phone bridge and VoIP. A long distance phone call is required to use the phone bridge. Only 24 people can be unmated at any time. Participants must either send a text message with a question or "raise hand" and ask to be unmated.
2) AI Telephone allows everyone to both listen and talk. A long distance phone call is required to use the phone bridge.

On Monday, I tried to link the two phone bridges using a conference phone, and that was a disaster. Participants could not hear well and the VoIP was overloaded and much of the conversation was lost.
On Tuesday, we used only the AI Telephone bridge with a few people and it worked very well.
On Wednesday, we again used only the AI Telephone bridge, this time with 300 people out of the 752 that are registered. We had problems with background noise because many phones were not muted. If we use this approach, participants MUST keep their phones muted except when they are speaking. I can mute everyone`s phone, but when I unmute, all phones are unmuted.
In planning the course, I thought an very important part of these courses was the discussion with the participants, and I was concerned that the GotoWebinar approach would inhibit that discussion. However, we are having problems with room noised with the AI Telephone approach.
Considering our experience so far, would you prefer:

20 ( 10% ± 4% ) AI Telephone where participants can mute their own phones and unmute them when they want to talk.
154 ( 78% ± 6% ) GotoWebinar where all participants are muted, but they can ask questions by either sending a text message or "raising their hands" to be unmuted.
23 ( 12% ± 4% ) No preference.
197 Total

Using a phone bridge requires participants to pay for a long distance call to the bridge. Discount phone service is available. For example, Skype charges $2.95 USD per month for up to 166 hours of calls per month to land lines and cell phones within US and Canada using a computer and VoIP. On Monday, we had severe problems with the free GotoWebinar VoIP service.
How important is free VoIP service to you?

21 ( 11% ± 4% ) I cannot participate using a phone bridge that required me to pay for a long distance call.
87 ( 46% ± 7% ) I prefer free VoIP but can use a phone bridge.
45 ( 24% ± 6% ) I prefer the phone bridge.
37 ( 19% ± 6% ) I would not use VoIP.
190 Total

If we can solve the phone problems, will you be able to participate in the course?

183 ( 94% ± 3% ) Yes
3 ( 2% ± 2% ) No
9 ( 5% ± 3% ) Not sure
195 Total

We have several requests to record the sessions. Thinking that live discussions is a very important aspect of the course, I have resisted recording. Instead, each session is repeated the following week on a different day. All information presented during the sessions will be available either on the website or in a textbook.
Would you prefer?

53 ( 27% ± 6% ) Repeating the sessions on a different day the following week.
87 ( 44% ± 7% ) Recording the sessions so they could be viewed at any time (requires the GotoWebinar integrated phone bridge).
60 ( 30% ± 6% ) No preference.
200 Total

In which of the following parts of the course do you think you will participate?

129 ( 64% ± 7% ) Installing R and R Commander
167 ( 83% ± 5% ) Overview of R using R Commander menus
159 ( 79% ± 6% ) Labs
182 ( 90% ± 4% ) Graphics
180 ( 89% ± 4% ) R Language
154 ( 76% ± 6% ) Working through The R Book.
129 ( 64% ± 7% ) Presentations on special topics.
202 Total

Do have any suggestions for the course?
• Webinar is new to me but... 1>I didn`t know how to mute via *6 and my phone doesn`t a mute button. Using this as an example, please explain even the simple stuff or better yet have a "how to page"/FAQ page 2>After a bit on the first day my computer was able to "stream" the class with out me calling in. That worked best for me. 3>If you record anything, please record the labs. 4>Recording would be great as I could power through material over the weekend 5>!!!Paul & Tom thankyou. Paul and Tom thankyou very much for doing this.
• It would be wonderful if the time of the course could be moved even slighting later. Currently, on Guam the course runs 4-6a. Not sure what effect daylight savings will have... but on Guam we don`t adjust our clocks. Having a recorded session would be nice enabling me to view them at a more decent time. I would prefer if the VoIP worked so that we did not have to make an additional phone call. But, if the only way we can have active participation is by having the phone bridge, then I say keep it.
• I suggest if we post all the questions at the end of the sessions then we do not waste time switching phones mute and unmute.
• You guys are very concientious. Monday was a disaster. Wednesday was ok, but it`s really impossible to expect so many people to mute (some cell phones can`t easily do that). Asking questions in the webinar tool is acceptable. Even listening to all the clicks and background chatter is ok for very short periods. Again, I`m really impressed with how hard you`re working to make this a success--THANK YOU!
• I would participate in labs but I think they start at 4 PM EST - - - so it would be hard. Mini-labs or homework exercises with dummy datasets would be helpful - or a break in the lecture where we use a fake dataset and do some of the functions. I really like this course, and if I can use R to do simple, moderate stats I will be very happy. If I get much more complicated I would be talking with a statistician.
• Working for a state agency makes it very difficult to access the audio portion of the presentation. I am unable to dial in directly, but am working on our IT people to somehow enable me to set-up with Skype. Hopefully I`ll be able to rejoin the audio portion in the future. Thanks for looking into alternatives for those of us that can`t direct dial. Kevin Dunham
• I will consider using Skype as a cheap alternative to ViOP. I don`t have funds for long distance calls. Is there a way to link that mac users? R is very similar but has some idiosyncracies.
• I`d be most grateful if the communication problems were resoved so that I can listen via my computer speakers, really my only option.
• I have been told that when I mute my phone others hear a beeping sound so I think that a overall mute with requests to ask a question should be a better option for the type of phone system I have.
• Any possibility of using a voice-recording program which can then scroll your words in a box on the bottom of the Webinar? We would not get spoken comments, but we could see what you are saying. Without the phone noise, both of your voices (Paul and Tom) seem to be clear enough for voice recognition.
• Just a note about my response. While I would prefer the VoIP due to limited phone lines in our office, if the phone bridge is clearly a better option I would still continue. I do find unmuted phones annoying and this may solve that problem. Another option for muting might be to mute everyone for the first few minutes of class then anounce you are unmuting and that everyone should mute their own phone at that time. Mention how *6 is a better mute option since it minimizes line noise between caller and phone bridge (including whale songs).
• I personally don`t have a preference on whether the course is recorded or repeated, but for people who find it difficult to attend these classes with their busy schedule, it might be helpful to record the sessions so they are able to listen to the session when it is convenient for them (e.g., the question that Cheri sent you that you included in the group question/response email).
• Started late so just listened into the lab last Thursday. Very happy to find you online & am thinking beggars can`t be choosers... Not an NPS employee so not sure about accessing the NPS data for the discussions. My suggestion would be to make whatever data we are learning with in the lab very accessible, and you`re probably already doing that.
• Try to minimize the time spent on tangential subjects and questions or on topics that are fully detailed on either your or Tom`s website, especially if we are all on long distance calls.
• I`m just learning R so it seems great so far. Thank you for offering this course!!
• If possible, people should use a phone with a physical mute button. The *6 option with a large number of people is tedious, as there is 30 seconds of beeping as everyone mutes/unmutes, and often you can not hear the question being asked.
• At this point, I have not been able to engage any of the presentations due to the problems with the phone and the course starting long after it is scheduled to begin. The schedule is confusing and one doesn`t know what part of the course is being taught when. It would be better for me if all of the topics above were taught in sequence perhaps two weeks apart. With proper notification, a person could catch up on the parts he missed. The course is also taught at a very difficult time in the Mt Time zone. For those of us that go to work at 7:00 in the morning, it`s pretty difficult to skip lunch to catch this course. Any possibility the course could start early morning for everyone???
• I think that we could get by with the current schedule of repeating the class the following week. However, with the lab offered only once, I would really like to participate, but will most likely not be able to quite often. I would love to see the lab recorded and offered to us and learning through doing examples is the best way for me to learn. I would not like to have to miss the labs.
• Given the great demand, would there be a chance of creating multiple class sections and, in this case, use pre-recorded lectures/presentations. Even if the live discussion is preferred, it CANNOT be done efficiently with a crowd of > 500 people.
• When you use your cursor to click on menu items on the screen, please do it a little more slowly, so we can see what item you are selecting before you click on it.
• I checked my preference for recording the sessions, but wanted to state it again here. I will be traveling a bit during the course and will have to miss a couple of sessions (including missing the repeated sessions), so it would be helpful to go back to the session when I am able. Thanks
• Maybe I am from moon, but I have NEVER seen a phone that does not have a mute button. The *6 issue is THE problem - do NOT mute using *6, USE THE MUTE ON THE PHONE! I think you need to send an email to all of the participants and explain to them that there are 2 ways to mute the phone, *6 or the button on their phone that (surprisingly) says "Mute". Use the latter. If your phone does not have a MuteButton on it (seriously doubt that) then try and find a phone that does. Or ask someone, "How do I mute this phone?" Odds are they simply don`t know how to use their phones. Greg Graves, SFWMD, ggraves@sfwmd.gov
• First, THANK YOU for this course and trying to work through the problems that have been encountered so far!!! I too am having trouble hearing and I feel that some folks are asking questions that really do not need to be asked in front of the entire group. This wastes quite a bit of time for everyone. I`d very much prefer a lecture type of course where most of the time is spent informing the participants about R, its features, and how to apply it to different analyses. In a lecture type situation, everyone would be muted to allow others to hear. I struggle a little with the idea of a live discussion with 700+ people. Just my thoughts....
• I strongly encourage the instructors to discontinue individuals to mute and un mute their phones to ask questions. It is very distracting becuase individuals do not realize their phone is not on mute. If this were a seminar or lecture course, for the most part, question would be held until the end of the course or materials presented.
• I definitely preger using the Webinar format to ask questions (as opposed to unmuting the phones) however I am a little unclear as to how the `raise hand` and `submit question` work - do you have to hit them both together or are they seperate entities? So I think going with that format would be convenient and also pleasant for everyone but a brief explanation of the correct protocol would be appreciated
• I paticipated in three webinars last year, the most memorable (in a good way) was the weeklong webinar on population modeling. In these session, the lecture/presentation portion was offered first and then a q&A session at the end. During the presentation portion, registrants could ask questions via the chat and the presenters would answer these as often as they were able. I felt these sessions went VERY well. I could focus on the material being presented, and then clarify any points of confusion at the end or with a text question. I DO NOT believe that the open discussion will be helpful, if Wednesday`s open discussion is how these sessions will go.
• I would like a site available where all of the datasets to download for the course can be found in one place (including a list of packages to download from R). It has been mildly confusing and frustrating to be getting different datasets from different places. I feel that this aspect could benefit from more organization and clarity.
• I am interested in sessions on the vegan package and spatial task view (what is a task view?). I really appreciate your efforts in putting on the webinar course. Thanks Paul and Tom!
• As a beginner who has done no statistical analysis since university 20 years ago, that many acronyms and references to software and formatting types are used that leave me in the dark. Although I don`t want the more advanced participants to be bored with going right back to basics, if instructors could really spell out every step during the first couple of sessions, it would help people like me. I`m considering dropping out after the first week now because I am feeling pretty lost and frustrated.... but maybe if I had been able to spend just a few hours before the course started reviewing the course material, I wouldn`t have that problem. If a very basic information source on statistical methods or softwares or formatting could be provide for slowpokes like me, maybe that would help? I think the instructors are doing a great job trying to accomadate so many diverse participants and i appreciate the dedication and effort being put into it. Thanks!
• I really appreciate that you are willing to open this course up and give so generously of your time. I think that the number of people participating makes an open phone line a procedural challenge. While it`s certainly convenient to be able to just jump in with a question over the phone, asking people to send questions in writing with some filtering over which are worth answering publicly might make for a smoother session. Perhaps the phone lines could be opened for general questions after you have gotten through the day`s planned material.
• As soon as you unmute your end for questions it gets pretty chaotic on our end and we can barely here you or anyone talking with all the background noise. I think it would be better if people could write in questions (text message) and you could repeat the questions with answers over the phone. That way you wouldn`t ever have to unmute the phone.
• I do not work on Mondays, so I will constantly be in a state of flux as far as getting through the topics in order. I`m concerned that attending them flip-flopped may be harder to follow.
• NEVER turn off global mute and/or threaten that you KNOW whose phone is not muted and they will be automatically diallowed to attend the course if they do not mute the phone. If a phone does not have a mute function (which I find hard to believe) these people SHOULD not speak or sneeze or listen to music or do other various rude and ignorant things!!
• I think it is going well so far, just am dumbfounded that people cannot operate a mute button on their phone.
• I am currently working with spatial data(kriging) and would be interested in any spatial stats that are covered.
• Thanks for your patience as we (course participants) work through the Webinar bugs on our end, as well. I think most of us were unaware that our phones needed to be remuted after the global unmute. Although I was not able to participate in the Thursday lab, sound quality had improved by the end of the Wed session. Keep up the good work.
• There is no reason why the AI Telephone bridge should not work. It`s truly incomprehensible that there are folks out there who aren`t paying attention to your oft-repeated requests to mute their phones. Maybe you should start the sessions by asking everyone to speak into their (supposedly) muted phones and state their location (city). We then could possibly figure out where the unmuted phones are, and get their attention. Just a thought... Otherwise, I`m very much looking forward to the course. Thanks for taking the time & effort to offer it!
• Thanks for asking my opinion. You and Tom have shown great patience, so thank you. I think teaching courses on computer packages is difficult because there is such a range of expertise and knowledge, and for some reason everyone needs to put in their two cents, which doesn`t work in this setting. I think your goal of allowing discussion is admirable, but with this many people that won`t work. Here is my suggestion. Mute everyone and conduct a lecture type format. People can send in their questions via email or the webinar but they should be addressed either 1) at the end of the session (if that is practical) or 2) via email later, or 3) at the beginning of the next session. The advantage of the last two options is that you can compile the questions and answer them more efficiently. Given that I am sure you are busy with your real job, I would do what works best for you on this one. I would not however, ask for questions throughout the session. It is not very efficient in this setting. On the labs, I thought Tom`s presentation and demonstration yesterday was excellent - and hit the main points. I would have you do the demonstration, then assign us to do the task as homework on our own. We can then ask questions via email on all the weird problems we get (and R is full of them) in a procedure similar my above suggestions. You can address them either via a group email (like you are doing) or in a short session at the beginning of the next lab. As to VOIP vs phone bridge, VOIP would be nice but not if it is not working. I think we need to do what is successful. Bottom line, let`s focus on getting to the material and less on the technology. Thanks again for your time on this!
• In the future, consider offering the initial sessions on T and Th; then repeat the following week on M and W. That way when someone misses a week due to travel, they do not start the next week 2 sessions behind. Or else record the sessions so they can be made up at any time.
• The day of a repeated lesson should be BEFORE the next lesson, allowing us a bit better chance to catch up. (I.e, offer the lesson the first time on Tu & Th, and repeat the next week on M & W.) Even so, if it`s not recorded, once we`re a week behind we will have to stay that way -- assuming there`s a progression to the lessons. You might want to do both -- record AND offer again the following week. Since the first day was so bad (audio-wise), I immediatley fell behind and now feel lost. However, it is quite likely that this course is not intended for me.
• Wednesday seemed to work well when everyone was muted until the end of the session and then questions could be asked. Maybe go through the material and then have questions half way through and then at the end????
• I`m not sure how the chat works. On Thursday, my chat still only had the option to send messages "to staff". Perhaps an e-mailed explanation of how to send chats to you instead would be helpful.
• the telephone bridge is a pain with the constant need to mute and unmute but it seems that the webinar text message is working well either VoIP isn`t a good option for me because of the lack of headphones/mic in our office
• Unfortunately, I have a conflict with the Thursday lab time, or I would certainly participate in that as well. Thanks so much for doing this!
• We have to solve the background noise problem on the phone. When phones are unmuted, I usually can`t hear anything. I think the clarity of the phone bridge is good when participants are muted, but there are too many participants and background noise issues to offer a phone Q&A. If you must offer a phone Q&A, please limit it to the last 10 minutes of class so folks like me who can`t hear anything can just hang up.
• I think do this survey again in a few weeks. I missed the last session but caught the installation ones. Big imporovement the second time. Thanks for putting it all together.
• Re:the phone muting problem. I think that with a group this big you just have to mute everybody. Its not just a problem of people forgetting to mute. On Wed I had my connection interrupted and had to re-dial, which forced me to produce a "bleep" when I reconnected and most likely a bit of static when I re-muted my phone. Thanks.
• I found the Lab 1 worked reasonably well - muting all participants and occassionally opening up for discussion, and to answer questions posted using the "raise hand". I`ve been on a few courses - and I really appreciate the opportunity to participate - I think it`s an excellent forum - but the biggest drawback is the background noise on the calls. I think there will always be someone or something causing a distraction....so my preference is muting the group. FYI - When I use the "mute" button on my phone, rather than *6, I think my line may stay muted when the phone lines are "opened up", but not absolutely sure about that - will try and check next week.
• Flash mute sign on screen
• You have done us all a great service in undertaking this timely and large scale course offering. I will probably learn more by doing and reading one of the `R` books, but your introduction will speed my progress and has opened my eyes to the potential. THANKS!!
• I have used R in the past (e.g. analysis of my MSc data, programming) and am always grateful for any learning opportunities in R. I originally learnt to use the program by typing code into the R Gui window or sourcing in a function from Crimson Editor. I had never used R Commander. When I sat in on Wednesday class I was somewhat familiar with some of the things you were doing, but when you started moving around the R Commander interface, you were going too fast for me to follow, especially as I was trying to copy what you were doing on my R Commander window. Would it be possible to slow it down. I know that there is a lot of material to go through, but once I was lost, I just gave up. I had to take a R course in university and I found that when everyone was working with the exact same dataset it was much easier to follow. At this point, most of us just need to go through the motions of the course not necessarily analyze a particular set of data. Could you assign just 1 particular dataset for labs? (As a side note, I had signed up to get the climate change data for an area in the States (I live in Canada and wasn`t able to get the data for my park)and I got a message that said that the data would be sent to my email address within an hour or 2. I never received it.) Also when you start with the R Language, would you be able to save the .Rhistory file and send it to the participants? I found it extremely useful when the my prof would save the .Rhistory file and send it to the class. That way we didn`t have to worry about about missing some of the code (also another good argument for everyone to work with the exact same dataset). And lastly, just to go back to one of your questions regarding recording the sessions... The course is usually given when I am out in the field collecting data. It is extremely hard for me to get back in time for the course, especially considering I work with another technician who is also forced to come back with me, but who is not taking the course. There are several advantages to recording the course, mainly allowing participants to do the course when they have time during the day/night and allowing participants to replay parts of the course for part they may have had difficulty understanging. But many thanks to you two for organizing this course. Although there have been some glitches, it is very much appreciated on my part.
• If people would mute their own phones, it would cut down on the background noise. The AI telephone is very difficult to hear because of all the beeping.
• Kudos for your patience and understanding thus far given all of the phone problems and background noise! I understand the importance of the live, dynamic session, but I would be all for recording the webinar (or some type of podcast). That would allow me to work through the course on a weekly basis when I could fit it in. Also, I do not have a speaker phone, so I have been trying to do the course via a laptop in a conference room. I`m very excited about the course though.
• Other than solving the technical issues related to the phone -- it is too early in the course to offer suggestions, and so far, it has been great and the type of information I was hoping for (despite the phone issues).
• Dear Paul, At times it isn`t clear to me where the windows/screens are coming from... where I can find them. You and Tom are terrific! cheers, c.j.
• 1. I would appreciate having recordings of the Thursdays Labs available to view later. 2. Seems like *6 is not an option. Keep instructing participants to `test in advance` the muting of their devices and to `refrain from joining` the sessions until they are able to do so (replace their device, read the manual, etc.)...out of good manners.
• I suggest eliminating questions by phone and having participants instead use the Webinar feature of typing in a question. This saves the aggravation of background noise and constantly hearing the beeps associated with muting one`s phone.
• Hopefully the problems with unmuted phones can be solved. If not consider responding only to questions from the webinar entry screen or from e-mail. Distribution of discission via e-mail is good since participants can focus on the issues that are of personal interest. Some questions are of general interest but many are not. With 200-700 participatents perhaps it would be better to answer only thoes you consider of broad interest during the live course and address others via e-mail discussion. Another option would be to hold all questions until the end of the course session then thoes with no questions but other pressing duties could skip Q&A session. A totally interactive course is a great goal but with so many participatents it just may not be feasiable.
• I suggest using the AI bridge with all phones muted, take questions by text message or email, then unmute occaisionally for live questions. There was way too much noise when the AI was unmuted. Even with the noise issue the course is GOOD!
• First of all, thank you for extending these courses to non-NPS and NGO participants. It is much appreciated. I think using the climate data to walk us through analyses that are pertinent to our own regions is a great idea. However, considering that many of us have not been able to download those data, and that it requires jumping right into five-dimensional data, perhaps it would be better to start with a smaller data set that is just two dimensional. With the confidence (and time) gained from that exercise, perhaps we and Santa Clara would then be ready for the more advanced exercises.
• With this number of participants I don`t think it will work to rely on people to mute their own phones. The only option is to keep everyone muted. Also, I really think that with this many people, audience participation is not realistic and it has to be a lecture format. In lieu of audience participation, a collaborative website (wiki) could be set up.
• If we continue with the GoToWebinar, with participants muted, you could offer to have the last 30 minutes of each session (more or less time as you deem apropriate) for a question and answer portion. That way you get through the materials scheduled (while participanats are muted), participants can hear your presentation, and we get to ask questions (if needed) at the end of each session. If participants don`t have questions, we can simply hang-up, while the rest of the group continues with the Q&A session. You can also post the Q&A session (as you have been) as a discussion via e-mail. Alternatively, recording the first presentation of a session, and having it available via the website, would be most flexible way for participants to listen as they can (or review the session if needed), then send in questions via e-mail to you for response via the discussion e-mail thread already started.
• The open discussion would be fine if it was a smaller group. With this many people I would prefer the write in questions and the hand raise. With so many people I felt that the classes lost any `flow` from the instructors. And the phone beeping was really bad. Many folks do not have modern phones with the mute button so this is not a problem that can be solved (no way around having the beebs). I thought some of the questions and insights from participants were good but some were quite esoteric, which would be expected with such a large group. Perhaps you could have the `open mike` questions for the lab and the write-in for the lectures. I want to say you guys are both so patient and I think you are doing a terrific job! cheers--L
• I would love to be able to send you example data sets and see what kind of work we can do. Off the top of my head, I can`t think of anything specific except, a linear algebra exercise. I would like to optimize a recipe using ingredients and nutrients as the two parameters. Is R able to handle something like that in mass quantities - as I need to do 500 recipes in 40 days.
• I appreciate you offering this course, I think it will be very valuable once the logistical issues are solved.
• Conference phone bridges are always tough. I use them often, and almost always experience the same problems we are seeing here, but not to this level because of far fewer participants. That is why the leader has to power to mute all other phones. You two are doing a great job. Your patience is amazing, your knowledge of the subject matter is commendable and you have great courage to take something on that is this big and inclusive, and new.
• i have not been organized enough to really start the course yet with other people in the office who want to do it, getting the techs organized etc. I did try to sit in on the lecture on monday using the webinar phone service and it was terrible, i couldn`t hear anything. hopefully the kinks are worked out when i try again on tuesday! I appreciate you guys putting on the course. My boss has been pushing for us to use R and this is a great chance to learn how.
• Just a note on Skype. My agency (USDA) has strictly forbidden the use of Skype on their networks. You may want to advise people to check with their agency before installing Skype. (This doesn`t impact me, just thought you should know)
• i would love to participate in this course but do not have any phone access. if i am not able to hear it through my computer, i will not be able to continue. i am a graduate student with no phone in my office.
• I think all phones should be muted and people should type questions in webinar to reduce background noise and allow the material to be disseminated more succinctly (ie, I think we would get through more material this way). I will still take the course if you choose another option. I appreciate you both taking the time to offer this course. I really need it right now, and it should be a huge help in my job. I would like to take the labs, but unfortunately, the timing does not fit into my schedule. I am hoping I will be able to do the lab exercises on my own by following the webiste. I have not tried this yet. Thanks again.
• Really like the idea of keeping everyone on mute!
• RE: Question 1, I`d say use the AI Telephone system but keep everyone muted almost all of the time. People _will_ forget to mute their phones. If live discussion is critical, you could have particular times when you a) remind everyone who doesn`t have a question to mute their phone, b) unmute all, and c) ask for questions from listeners at that time. VOIP I worry might always be overloaded with several hundred people, no matter what system you use -- this is quite a challenge for an internet sound system! Thanks for working on this!
• An idea for the communication/technical difficulties: If the VoIP through Webinar will work to broadcast your presentations to all of us on the computer only, we could primarily use the chat box provided by the webinar interface to ask questions and use the AI Telephone number to call in ONLY if there is a super pressing question someone has or if you want people to share examples of their own (have only those people with something to say call in)?
• I really like the Lab idea, I just don`t have time for it too. I think the Webinar`s text message and "raise hand" would serve the large class size better than the `open mike` approach we`ve got now. Seems that too many people or perhaps conference rooms of people are unable to mute their phone.
• Thank you very much for the time and effort to host this course! It`s a tremendous resource, and value, for us government worker types. I think that one problem with requesting people to mute their phones was that muting was not explained or requested while global mute was on, only while it was off. As a result, the explanation of how to mute and the request to mute was very often garbled by the background noise. Perhaps very clear and emphatic directions at the beginning (while on global mute) would be helpful. If that doesn`t work, I think that maybe the entire day`s tutorial should be presented with global mute on, and have people save their questions for a Q&A period at the conclusion of the tutorial. It seemed that it was the same people asking questions and that most of the people listening in had no difficulty in following the presentation. In this way, the presentation could move along a little faster and those with no questions can go about their day`s business if they don`t want to listen in on the Q&A at the end. As far as recording the sessions, it may reduce your work load and committment to this effort, and let people catch up on a course at their convenience. Thanks again for the effort. Its truly appreciated.
• I especially recommend recording the labs, if possible, because they are not repeated and fall later in the day for people on the east coast.
• Recording the sessions that could then be viewed and heard, at and time, through the webinar VoIP would be ideal.
• Being an old dog myself, I prefer the voice-to-voice interaction, but if there are people on phones who cannot mute their phones we should consider using the presentation-only mode with text questions. Alternatively, can we ask those without hardware mute buttons to tape a hankie or something over the mouthpiece on their handsets? That would allow us to use the AI telephone setup.
• I checked working through "The R Book" ... but I don`t have the book, so if it is required, I won`t be able to participate. So far, I really appreciate this course and am looking forward to working through it all. I am trying to schedule it in so that I don`t miss any sessions (this is esp. important to me b/c I am the only one in my office participating in this course or that is trying to use R ... so I can`t get outside help easily). I really like the idea of being able to view recorded sessions ... that will especially help me to not entirely miss any sessions ... I would definitely prefer to participate during the time slot ... but just in case I have to be somewhere else during that time, ... I would love to have this opportunity for suggestions later on as we move through the course. ONE MORE SUGGESTION: I think we should all use the same dataset for the labs. It would make it easier for us to know if we are doing it correctly. Everyone using their own or different datasets is confusing and I don`t see any real advantage w/ doing that for this large of a course. THANKS FOR THE OPPORTUNITY FOR INPUT! AGAIN: ONE MORE SUGGESTION: Is there any way to get the same dataset to everyone to work from for the labs. I am concerned that it will be difficult to know if you are making errors, if you are working w/ a different dataset than the instructors.
• Paul, Tom, you both are doing a great job. Trying to teach R to 200+ students with an array of experience and with an interactive class setting would be truly daunting to most. I do not know how the webinar works, but I did recently attend a webinar on recent and upcoming QW data tools. During the lecture any student could type a question/comment in the communication box. The question/comment could be sent to either the moderator or to the entire class. The moderator would then let the speaker know that there is a question being asked and either the moderator or the speaker would answer the question. If you could get that to work for this course I think it could be good way of handling the questions. Have everyone muted (it is difficult to follow when the speaker is interrupted with unintended conversations), then if Tom is giving the lecture portion, Paul watches the questions and at pertinent times give Tom the go ahead to answer those questions. Or if the webinar question box will not work have everyone muted for most of the lecture then have a question session after the lecture where everyone is unmutted. Once the course gets underway many people will drop out (like in a university course) and it may be possible to have a more relaxed setting (unmutted phones) in which students can communicate thoughout the entire lecture. We are using our field cell phones to make a call into the AI phone bridge - this should save a bit of money. Thanks.
• Mac support in set-up would be very helpful.
• At least throughout the first two phone/webinar conferences, the noise from multiple connections and not muting upon connection made following the discussion difficult. I am very interested in learning R and greatly appreciate this service. However, the timing for the course is not the best for me; I’m pushing to finish a ms and have a report due at the end of December. I still plan to follow the course as time permits from the website. I purchased the R book and from what I’ve seen, R will more than meet my needs and is more intuitive than SAS. What would be helpful is if you could link the website to saved webinar presentations. Thanks, Noel
• Although I understand your concern that the use of the GoToWebinar will inhibit open discussion, I think in the end it is more important for everyone to be able to hear the presentations and discussion. The AI phone would work well if everyone would keep phones muted, but with 300+ people, this is unfortunately unlikely. I see no problem with the GoToWebinar service that can have up to 24 unmuted, except that it is more work for the presenter. An additional benefit is that the presenter can decide when they are ready to take questions; this is not unlike any classroom.
• FIRST OF ALL, PAUL AND TOM, WE REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR PERSISTENCE AND PATIENCE TO MAKE THIS COURSE WORK FOR SUCH A LARGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE! YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING AND VERY COURAGEOUS TO TAKE THIS ON. I`m sure it will all work out eventually. It would be great if the phone problems could be resolved. When all the phones were muted by the instructors, it seemed to work much better, except for the inability of people to get their questions through. I had to miss the lab last week due to field commitments; it sounds like you`re going to put the lab material, or at least some of it, on the course website -- that would be excellent; I hated to miss that lab.
• For the me the two hour sessions are a big hit out of my day and to do that 3 times a week plus other work that is needed to keep up is just a big time slot. I think the course is a great idea and I applaud both of you for doing this but if the session could be shorter or one class session one lab a week I would be able to attend more. Thank you much for your efforts
• Thanks for all your efforts. I am excited to be taking this course.
• Not so much a suggestion, but thanks for working through the problems associated with getting the course operating smoothly. Obviously getting over 500 people connected to an on-line course is not an easy task, kudos to you two for putting up with all the problems. One problem that we encountered in our office (we`re USFWS) is that we couldn`t get the data for the lab. We followed the instructions on Tom`s web page but never got the e-mail back with instructions on downloading the data.
• Thanks for your efforts to try to please everyone (and apparently there are a lot of us!!). Given the number of participants and the intracacies of the Webinar technology, people should not expect things to go exactly like they were sitting in a lecture hall watching a live speaker and a PowerPoint (or Impress if you are an open source fan!), especially given it`s a "free" course. (Although I must say this has been a lot better than many courses I`ve had to pay for!!) I`ve been impressed with what I`ve seen so far, and despite the frustrations with the communications issues, the second session was much improved over the first!! Becoming aware of the documentation alone has been a great benefit to me. I also appreciate the breadth of both Paul and Tom`s knowledge in dealing with all the "other" packages, and being sensitive to the needs of different users in making the transition to R. So thanks again for making this available to outsiders!!
• Start with simple data sets and analyses and then work up to more complex ones.
• At the risk of re-inventing the wheel (or in this case, the R-help discussion list which is a fabulous resource), I do think it would be great benefit to have a concurrent listserv type email discussion group so that users could help each other as it specifically relates to what is happening in the course. I don`t know that it would be too difficult to set up a Google group for this purpose. This would take some of the load off of the instructors (I think), allow more input and discussion from the participants, and I think we would all learn more from each other. A FAQ might be nice too. On a slightly different note, I think it would help if people were required to install and set up the program before the course started. This is often the part with the most fiddly bits, and so many questions from so many people are difficult to address on a conference call session with hundreds of people with hundreds of different configurations. The instructions on the website were very clear, and it was just as clear that many people did not bother to go through them at all, and just waited for you to tell them what was needed. As R is not necessarily your average easy installation, it would really help do have folks try it on their own beforehand. The webinar offers a way to record the course, and I believe it would be good to have this available as well as repeating the sessions the next week on a different day. Is that not possible, or too difficult for some reason? Thanks so much for offering this course, and I am amazed at how patient you are with questions.
• Having lots of interruptions from the 100s of participants is distracting. I would prefer to have a lesson, then open it up for questions after.
• Require everyone to raise their hand and only unmute those who have questions. It doesn`t matter how often you remind people to mute their phones, it only takes 1 out of 300 not to get it and be eating a bag of chips and disrupt the whole class. Also, the beeps from people who are remuting their phones after you unmute them all is enough to drive people away. The upshot here is that I think you`re going to need to keep it in "presentation mode" the whole time and only unmute individuals who have questions.
• I understand your desire to have discussion, but I think with so many participants it is probably best to stick with a lecture format, and then just open up for questions for brief intervals. Otherwise we will never get done!
• The phone issues are getting better and seemed to work fine at yesterday`s lab. I think that it is a matter of people learning how to mute their phones. A topic that I would like to see covered is fitting models with maximum likelihood methods and time series analysis. This is not a suggestion but I did appreciate Tom`s comments yesterday regarding difficulties in retrieving data that were stored in proprietary formats. We have had to keep a computer around that still does Quattro because of that very issue. His recommendation to convert the data as CSV is simple and should work until the medium is no longer available. I am enjoyiong the course.
• If you use the phone, leave it in presentation mode for as long as possible.
• I really appreciate the opportunity to participate in the course and I can`t thank you enough. Given the large number of folks who are signed up, I don`t think it`s feasible to make the course as interactive as we`d all like. Unmuted phones are going to be an issue unless course attendance shrinks considerably. Keeping us all muted seems like the only feasible approach. However, please clarify how one "submits a question to webinar organizers" during a webinar. The only option I see is "submit questions to staff" and I know you are not staff. I like being able to look ahead on your webpages to see what you intend to cover during a session. The webpages, and especially all the links to related information, are tremendously helpful. Thanks for making them available! Two-hour sessions 3 times a week for an extended period is more time than most of us feel like we can afford. What about the possibility of spending the first hour doing lecture and leaving the second hour for questions (for those who have questions and the rest of us can sign off)? There are obvious advantages to taking questions on the fly but many of the questions don`t seem to be of general interest (at least to me).
• Tell people to use the mute feature on their phone, and if their phone does not have a mute button then use *6. Hopefully that would get rid of most of the `beeps`. Or keep everyone on mute and have us type questions into the webinar. It just gets too crazy when you leave us to mute ourselves...
• Please, I need a free VoIP service
• The pace seems way too slow. For instance, I could figure out how to do most everything that was shown in RCmdr because it was all menu driven, and I had never heard of it. What I was hoping was, not to see how to do the easy stuff, but either how to do non-intuitive stuff, or, what pitfalls exist. And the continual beeps are annoying.
• Having participated in other on-line sampling/analysis courses my view is that people muting and un-muting their phones during the lecture is distracting. There is the ability to type in questions during the webinar which is still interactive but requires someone to monitor and help the lecturer screen questions. I do not feel this approach has been used to its potential and I think it holds the most promise for a seemless presentation of material. Either method of repeating the lectures is acceptable but recording the sessions gives a little more flexibility for catching up (for instance if you miss monday but can attend wednesday you are out of sync with the lecture presentation and are probably better off waiting for both lectures until the following week).
• First I want to say to Paul and Tom again well done and thanks for your patience and steadiness through this first week! Folks around the table here at CWS would be happy to listen in "presentation mode" for the entire session with questions at the end. A different group of us felt the same way two years ago when we sat in. It is my humble view that the average attendee will get more out of the session by focussing on the material you are presenting with fewer breaks for questions. The information I think would be relayed more efficiently for intermediate and advanced-level participants that way. I realize this may leave some people somewhat lost for parts of the session but you have made every effort to provide ways for struggling participants to get up to speed (i.e. by providing detailed material in advance, soliciting questions, hosting the discussion forum to get detailed answers and then running each session again for those who didn`t get it the first time). I think the only way that this `safety net` that you have implemented could be improved is by recording and archiving the GoToMeetings themselves. That way if folks were struggling through a session and couldn`t get their questions in or answered at the end of a session and can`t attend the session again due to schedule conflicts, they could download the session and run through it again with the responses to their questions on the discussion forum in hand. I only have approval to attend 4 hours/week so if the sessions were recorded, I could download them on my own time and stay up to speed. This would be easier than working through the textbook on my own. Others may have similar thoughts. In short, I am saying that if you are comfortable being a little less egalitarian in your approach, I think it might result in an increase in the amount of information you can relay or a decrease in the time required to cover the material. In order to not lose those who are totally new to R and are perhaps the questions on the phone line should be focussed on their needs and intermdiate or advanced folks can use the discussion forum. Guidelines like that might be useful for optimizing the question periods.
• So far, it`s been very interesting.
• I thought I wouldn`t be able to participate without the free VOIP, (I guess I`m a dinosaur because I didn`t even know what skype was) but looking into it, it seems like that is the perfect solution and I will be able to participate after all. Thanks for the info on Skype!
• Not only is the background noise annoying, but all the beeps when people are muting and unmuting are problems - I agree discussion and questions are important, but I think the solution described above is best.
• Try to not get bogged down in basic questions by lots of people DURING the 2 hour on-line course. The EMAILS with Q&A format is great for answering each person`s specific question without slowing down the entire class. 4-6 hours/week is a lot of work time to dedicate to this and it would be better if you could cover more info within that time period. As for using the phone bridge, whenever you mute/un-mute everyone we hear about a dozen beeps and that is annoying. It seems that there is never even close to 24 people asking questions so the Webinar thing should work to talk. Personally, I feel more comfortable asking questions using the Webinar text message because it is anonymous. =) Thanks!
• I was using the phone bridge, but have just been informed that I will not be allowed to continue to make long distance calls. It would really be great to have a way to listen without paying the long distance call- even if it wasn`t in real time. Thanks for the opportunity!
• thanks for putting on this course and working through all of the technical issues!!!
• As a participant, it seems easier to understand the information when people are muted. I would prefer if the phone system could be worked out so that we could hear the lecture through the VoIP service, and utilize the instant messaging via GotoWebinar to ask questions. Maybe at various times throughout the lecture, questions that come up on the instant message could be answered, but that everyone continue to be muted throughout the webinar.
• I am still very thankful for the opportunity to participate in this free course. Thank you for being patient and working through the difficulties!
• i am having difficulties connecting to a mirror on the Port 80 link (and then install R Commander)- i think this is due to a problem on my end. if i am not able to resolve, i will not be able to use R
• I selected the Gotowebinar choice on the phone question although I, like others, had trouble following because of sound quality and consistency (the webinar sound kept cutting out and warping).
• I can not think of anything for this course, but I think it would be helpful if there could be follow-up sessions with some of the wildlife oriented packages such as integrating program Distance and R or using the capture-recapture package.
• The session on thursday was much better perhpas because there were fewer people. The background chatting when you unmute the phone is really pretty minor and I thought Tom did a great job of identifying people through subjects in their conversation that seemed to get people to mute their phone. I`m guessing that as people atrophy from the course and as we get more experience with muting the phone that this become less of an issue
• AS much as it would be nice to be able to have people ask questions, the past 3 classes have shown that to be an unworkable situation. I believe without muting everyone for the whole class, it will be a marginal class at best.
• If you can get the text questions in option working, I think that would be best. It seems hard to get all people to mute their phones and since all keypad punches make noise, it is distracting to hear all the *6 punches.
Are there other courses you would like USGS to offer using this format?
• If I can find a way to get comfortable with the current format (not there yet). I would say yes, it would be good to offer other courses this way. I would love to have more training events of this caliber available to myself and others stationed in remote locals. I would be very interested in a incident command structure course but also would like to see other tech/programing courses made available.
• I would love to know more about Microsoft Access and ArcMap - Spatial Analyst.
• Cannot answer this until this one is finished and unless the com. problems are solved I will not be able to participate. I missed the first lab because of lack of com. Thank you, Nancie Cummings NMFS, SEFSC
• Let me think about this.
• Maybe program MARK? Survival analysis in R? Generalized linear mixed models?
• Stat overview stand-alone
• Will think about this one and probably have some suggestions at the end of the course - you will be sending out another questionaire as an evaluation?
• I need an ACCESS database and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) course.
• A short course on power analysis and sample sizes for various types of monitoring projects would be great.
• Repeated Measures Analysis (linear modeling)
• Perhaps a course on rating curves and rating curve software.
• R applications in ecology study: case studies with multivariate analysis
• Yes, "The Mute Button and You".
• A course on using mixed models in SAS would be extremely helpful for me and the other graduate students in my lab, particularly with repeated-measures data.
• I would appreciate a gis course.
• I would be interested in a course on kernel density estimators for home range/territory analysis.
• trend analysis
• Maybe a short course on R Mark?
• spatial stats hydro modeling
• I don`t know the breadth of your interests, but I would be interested in a trend detection workshop, especially within context of large spatial/temporal scale programs being conducted - what methods are currently available and what are being developed Also, a GAM course would be of interest to me, or regression/advanced regression techniques. Thanks!
• * Relational database design and management principles and applications * Habitat suitability models Thank you so much for providing this free course!
• Any type of modeling course would be great
• I like the courses currently being offerred - no suggestions at this time.
• Analysis of censored water quality data
• Not sure right now :)
• Use of ArcGIS in the analysis of natural resource phenomena.
• time series analysis, waveletts, Baysian statistics
• GIS?
• I would like accelerated ACCESS training or beginner SAS training.
• some informatic language, because is the major tool for the manage of huge biological databases. Create and manage your own database. I think that this is the next step for analisys of lots of results (ex: sequencing services now can originate around 5 Gb of information and it´s not easy to deal with that amount of data.
• using program MARK
• anything that you feel like putting on that would advance knowledge of biological statistics, experimental techniques etc, especially in regard to fisheries. I am a sponge!
• Distance would be awesome!
• A course on utilizing Geodatabases for environmental data management and specific project workflows would be timely. Many I&M Networks are trying to organize their inventory GIS data and getting their monitoring projects going. Strategies for setting up a geodatabase to accept monitoring data coming in in future years would be helpful as well.
• GIS software?
• How to use Presence
• Not offhand ... but I REALLY like this format and the opportunity to learn w/out having the expense of trying to travel for training. I realize it is not the same thing as being in a small class and having someone to ask questions in person ... but I am finding this very useful.
• We don`t always have the opportunity to design a research or monitoring project from scratch, especially when management wants scientific input on the latest political issue. I could use a set of guidelines for determining what are the relevant questions, reviewing existing data, and identifying the information needs.
• A power analysis course would be fabulous, because it`s really one of the things that is lacking in almost every study I see. I`d also like to see -- occupancy modeling again. -- sampling design again. -- model selection and inference. -- introduction to Bayesian statistics. -- database design and use(with MS Access). -- Program DISTANCE. -- Program MARK. -- other things that I can`t think of at the moment
• I am a recent federal employee, so I still don`t know all of the options that are available to me, so you may want to take my comments with a grain of salt. Here goes... I know that I could use a lot of help with statistics, so for me the possible course range seems endless - community statistical analysis (invertebrate and vegetation), power analysis of sampling designs, etc. However, I wonder if perhaps you could offer (if you don`t already) a statistical consulting service where a person could schedule 2 hours or so to talk about their particular statistical needs, go over sampling designs, etc.
• Yes such as a intermediate program MARK course.
• Spatial distribution modeling
• Multivariate techniques in ecology (Vegan) Advanced Experimental Design and Analysis in Ecological Settings Population Viability Analysis Decision Analysis and Gaming Theory Bayesian Analyses Risk Assessment Models of Invasive Species Neural Nets
• What other possibilities are there?
• This course and the sampling course are fantastic. They set the stage for more advanced topics that would be very valuable short courses: -spatial autocorrelation in ecological analysis -maximum likelihood estimation (what the heck is it and when/how is it relveant to ecological analysis? -estimating detection probability and detection functions?
• A Program MARK course would be great. Also a multivariate stats course.
• Some basic statistics and study design courses with emphasis on natural resource management - refreshers for those of us who had those classes in college but haven`t used the information for several years.
• Advanced statist courses on specific topics: repeated measures analysis for ecological data, ANOVA mixed-model approach, etc. Whether it is using R or SAS or even just theoretical.
• FVS
• I am new to the federal system so I`m not sure if NPS and USGS use similar protocols for managing their shared databases. However, as an NPS employee I am interested in learning how to use Microsoft Access to handle I&M data.
• any new stats programs, GIS programs, data analysis, AIC, modelling, etc.
• I was very interested in the spatial statistics course that Tom mentioned on Wednesday.
• monitoring--wildlife populations, plant populations, wildlife habitat

Thank you very much for your advice.

Paul and Tom

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