GENERAL BIOLOGY I. Four credit hours per semester. Three hours of lecture and one three-hour laboratory per week. Study of the diversity of organisms, the relationships between them and their environment,the fundamental aspects of their structure and function, and the processes that regulate the perpetuation of life.

Course description

As science becomes increasingly more data and computation intensive, maintaining the ability to build on our own or other’s prior work requires that the process that takes data and other inputs all the way to the results presented in a paper is documented and made available in full detail.

This course will teach participants how to develop workflows going from raw data to graphics and statistical analysis, using the programming language and statistical environment R. Over the course of the semester, participants will learn the skills to write scripts to automate data formatting and analysis, making their studies replicable.

Course Goals

  • Understanding and being able to use basic programming concepts
  • Automate data analysis
  • Working collaboratively and openly on code
  • Knowing how to generate dynamic documents
  • Being able to use a continuous test-driven development approach

The general principles of the interrelation between organisms and their environment.