Workshop and Special Session Descriptions:

 

June 11 Workshops

(See further down for June 12 and 13 workshops and special sessions.)

​

Workshop 1. An R Crash Course for Biologists: from Basic R to Advance Visualizations, GLMs, GAMs, and Machine Learning Models

​

Organizers: Robert Colautti and Mia Akbar, Damian Bourne and Maria Jose Gomez Quijano

Schedule: June 11, 9 am to 4 pm. 

Location: Meeting Room 7-8

​

Description: The goal of this workshop is to democratize coding and quantitative skills for biologists, particularly those who have not received university-level training in mathematics or computer science. Intended for any member of the academic, public, and private sectors who has little to no prior experience in computer science or the R programming language. The content for this course is based on the recently released R Crash Course for Biologists and the forthcoming R STATS Crash Course for Biologists, which are available online to course participants at no cost.

​

What to bring: A laptop with fully charged battery and internet access. (Free WiFi will be available.) Participants should install the free versions R and R Studio Desktop. Download the software from the following links:

    R: https://cran.r-project.org/mirrors.html (choose a link that is

         geographically close to you)
    R Studio: https://posit.co/download/rstudio-desktop/

​

Cost: $30.

Maximum number of participants: 100

​

Additional note: This workshop includes a midday break, when participants can find their own lunch at nearby restaurants or food trucks.

​

__________________

​

Workshop 2. Developing a reproducible workflow in R using functions, {targets} and {renv}

​

Organizers: Alec Robitaille and Isabella Richmond

Schedule: June 11, 9 am to 4 pm. 

Location: Meeting Room 9-10

​

Description: This workshop will cover key elements of reproducible workflows targeted at users with familiarity with the R programming language. First, project management including directory structure and tracking dependencies with {renv} and {conflicted}. Next, writing independent steps of analyses as functions that are flexible and testable. Finally, combining those functions along with input data to build a reproducible workflow with {targets}. Many ecology and evolution analyses have modifications throughout the scientific process, which results in analytical steps that need to be rerun. {targets} tracks dependencies between input files, analysis steps and outputs and as you modify your project, it only reruns the relevant pieces. {targets} is an effective way to produce and manage a reproducible workflow, and is one of the first pipeline tools designed specifically for R, the main coding language of many CSEE attendees. Workshop attendees will gain fundamental project management and reproducible workflow skills that they can apply to their own projects and take back to their labs and collaborators.

This workshop is accepting remote participants.

​

What to bring: A laptop with fully charged battery and internet access. (Free WiFi will be available.) A recent version of R, and your favorite IDE (e.g. RStudio or Visual Studio). A full list of R packages will be provided closer to the date of the workshop.

​

Cost: $30.

Maximum number of in-person participants: 100

Maximum number of remote participants: 100

​

Additional note: This workshop includes a midday break, when participants can find their own lunch at nearby restaurants or food trucks.

​

___________________

​

Workshop 3. GitHub for biologists: A painless introduction to a powerful collaboration tool

​

Organizers: Samantha Straus and Mike Lavender

Schedule: June 11, 9 am to 11 am.

Location: Meeting Room 3

​

Description: GitHub is a powerful tool for collaboration and reproducibility, but the learning curve can be steep. This workshop aims to lower the barrier to entry as much as possible by sharing tools and resources that take GitHub out of the command line and into everyday use. We will introduce beginner GitHub users to the importance of version control, best practices for daily use and with collaborators, and get them set up and using GitHub by the end of the workshop. Through a series of short partner activities, we will help the participants through each step of setting up GitHub and teach them basic functions that can (and should) be used everyday, such as pushes, pulls, branching, and merging. By the end of the workshop, participants should feel comfortable and motivated to incorporate GitHub into their current and future projects. This workshop is sponsored by the CIEE’s Living Data Project.

​

What to bring: Participants should bring their own fully charged laptop with R, RStudio, and git installed prior to the workshop. The organizers will provide participants with materials for how to do this ahead of the workshop.

​

Cost: $15

Maximum number of participants: 30

 

______________________

​

Workshop 4. The next steps in the establishment of a Long-Term Research network in Canada

​

Organizers: Melanie Boudreau, Andrea Wishart, Quinn Webber, Jeff Bowman, and Colin Garroway

Schedule: June 11, 9 am to 11 am

Location: Meeting Room 4

​

Description: The value of long-term ecological research projects is undeniable. Since 2017, the development of a long-term network has been in planning. The LTR-CSEE section was formed in 2019, and since that time, several symposia have been held on how to develop, fund, and maintain an LTR network in Canada. This year, our objectives are to host an 'unconference' event, fostering a creative space for peer-to-peer learning, collaboration and creativity. Unconferences are unstructured and emphasize the exchange of information among participants. During this session, all participants will have the opportunity to suggest discussion topics (e.g., funding solutions, ideas for empirical or review papers, etc.), sub-groups will work on the ideas presented, and then progress will be briefly summarized before topics are continued to be developed or rotated through until the end of the workshop. In this way, we will produce a road map of action items the LTR Section can take to establish an LTR network.                 

Cost: $20

Maximum number of participants: 60

 

_____________________

​

Workshop 6. An Intro to RMarkdown for productive and reproducible science

​

Organizers: Mike Lavender and Samantha Strauss

Schedule: June 11, 1 to 3 pm

Location: Meeting Room 3 

         

Description: This workshop introduces the fundamentals of RMarkdown with a focus on a reproducible collaborative workflow to produce manuscripts with tables, figures, and citations, formatted for a target journal.
Recent years have seen a push for open, reproducible, and collaborative science. Platforms such as R/RStudio have improved our ability to do this, but many still struggle to collaborate effectively. The back-and-forth exchange of documents by email is one solution; however, this often leads to myriad versions of documents, and the risk of outdated or miss-matched results in the manuscript.

In this workshop we will present one workflow that allows for versioning of written documents while keeping a direct link to the statistical analyses. We will do this by using Google Drive, and RStudio and RMarkdown for collaboration and writing. This course will help anyone interested in collaborating with others using an open and reproducible workflow. This workshop is sponsored by the CIEE’s Living Data Project.

​

What to bring: A fully charged laptop with internet (Wi-Fi) access and a recent version of R and RStudio loaded. Free WiFi will be available. Download the software from the following links:

    R: https://cran.r-project.org/mirrors.html (choose a link that is

        geographically close to you)
    R Studio: https://posit.co/download/rstudio-desktop/

​

Cost: $15                                            

Maximum number of participants: 100

​

______________________

​

Workshop 7. Communicating Science on Social Media

​

Organizer: Bruno Eleres Soares

Schedule: June 11, 9 to 10:50 am

Location: Meeting Room 11-12

​

Description: This workshop is designed to teach you how to create and manage a science communication (SciComm) program using social media. You will learn how to identify the target audience and an adequate editorial strategy to reach them, but also how to create a program that can adapt into your life. We will discuss techniques for creating effective science communication messages to specific audiences, how to choose the best venue for your program (e.g., YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, etc.) and be invited to think on the opportunities and strengths we currently have to reach our SciComm goals. Our workshop will foster an inclusive learning environment that recognizes our particularities as scientists and the different ways we can tackle science communication to reach different people. By planning effective science communication programs in groups, we are able to create a landscape that effectively communicates science to everyone. Don't miss out on this opportunity to enhance your science communication skills and promote a more inclusive scientific education. This workshop is sponsored by CIEE.

​

What to bring: A fully charged laptop with internet access. Free WiFi will be available. We will use Google Docs and Jamboard using web browsers.

​

Cost: $20

Maximum number of participants: 20

_____________________

​

Workshop 8. SWEEET: Funding and open science as avenues for improving accessibility and equity in science

​

Organizers: Carling Bieg, Nicole Fenton, Maddie Jarvis-Cross, Megan Brownlee and Sian Kou-Giesbrecht

Schedule: June 11, 1 to 5 pm

Location: Meeting Room 4

​

Description:

The Symposium for Women and Equity-Seekers in Ecology and Evolution Today (SWEEET) aims to address the challenges faced by marginalised folks in academic, government, and industry positions within the fields of ecology and evolution. We hope to increase awareness, promote strategies, and inspire action that cultivates inclusive, communal, and accountable workplace cultures and relationships. This year we are joining up with the Canadian Botanical Association’s (CBA) IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility) Committee to host a joint workshop at the CSEE-CBA meeting. This year’s event will engage with conversations regarding science funding (e.g., the Support Our Science Initiative) and discuss the need for open and accessible science for addressing global issues. We will specifically highlight these topics as EDI issues throughout our workshop. We will host expert panellists and lead a discussion about science funding (i.e., to whom, where and how much public funding is distributed), an interactive activity to help participants become more equipped to get funding (e.g., what do selection committees look for, how EDI issues are considered), as well as a discussion on open science and science accessibility (e.g., access to work funded by public money; open science/access to knowledge; communication; and how access to science affects public knowledge). We will also leave time for open discussion among workshop participants. Coffee and light snacks will be provided.

Please follow us on twitter (@SWEEET_ecoevo) and our website (https://sweeetecoevo.weebly.com) for updates as we get closer to the meeting!

                                             

Cost: No charge for participants

Maximum number of participants: 125

 

______________________

​

Workshop 9. A workshop on publishing in peer-reviewed journals for early-career researchers

​

Organizers: Josephine Sciortino, Fanie Pelletier et Christian Lacroix

Schedule: June 11, 11:00 am to 12:30 pm

Location: Meeting Room 11-12

​

Description: Early-career researchers (ECRs) are navigating a publishing landscape that is complex and constantly evolving. Most ECRs do not receive formal training on scholarly communication and face challenges when publishing. This workshop aims to pull back the curtain and answer questions on the publishing process. We will offer insights into the things you should consider when planning your manuscript:  preprint sharing, publishing models, and journal metrics and the peer-review process after submission. You will learn how you can maximize the impact of your work, how Canadian Science Publishing (CSP) journals are working to showcase and support Indigenous-led and community-engaged research, how you can benefit from our read and publish agreements. We will also highlight the ways ECRs can get involved with CSP journals beyond submitting papers as authors. This workshop will be presented by the editors of FACETS (Fanie Pelletier), Botany (Christian Lacroix), and the Director of Environmental Sciences Journals at CSP (Sherestha Saini).    

​

Cost: $15

Maximum number of participants: 60

______________________

​

Workshops and Special Sessions on June 12-13

 

Workshop 10: Turning Sound into Discovery: Using Wildlife Audio Recorders as a Valuable Research Tool

​

Organizer: Alexandra Donargo, Wildlife Acoustics

Schedule: June 12, lunch meeting

Location: Meeting Room 9-10

​

Description: Bioacoustics and soundscape analysis are increasingly becoming valuable tools for biologists, environmental scientists, and managers to survey and monitor wildlife populations and changing habitats. Wildlife audio recorders, specifically the Song Meter recorder, is a non-invasive, cost-effective and an unbiased method used to aid in resource management, habitat health assessment, regulatory compliance goals, animal behavior studies and even documenting the effects of climate change. Biologists all over the world have made the Song Meter platform the standard for bioacoustics recording with over 100,000 recorders deployed in over 100 countries. This hands-on workshop will teach participants the features and set up of the Song Meter SM4, Song Meter Mini and Song Meter Micro bioacoustics recorders. Several case studies will also be presented and discussed. Time permitting, we will also review the free and paid versions of our Kaleidoscope software for efficient analysis of acoustic data. Limited space available. Lunch will be provided.

​

Cost: No charge to participants

Maximum number of participants: 100

​

Note: Lunch will be provided by Wildlife Acoustics. Participants must register in advance.

______________________

​

NSERC Discovery Grant Information Session

 

Schedule: Tuesday June 13th, 11:50 - 12:35

Location: Meeting Room 2

Advance registration is not required

​

This session will present an overview of the application process for NSERC Discovery Grant funding, and address common misperceptions surrounding the evaluation of applications for grant funding. Details of how Evaluation Group (EG) members employ the "Conference Model" to bin grant applications, and how those bins are translated into funding awarded will be of particular interest to Early Career Researchers, but there will also be ample time for participants, including Established Researchers, to ask questions of experienced former members of NSERC EG 1503 (Evolution and Ecology) and NSERC Senior Program Officer Brenda MacMurray. In that this session will occur within the 90-minute lunch break, participants can order a boxed lunch provided by the RBC Convention Centre to eat during the session for $35 (taxes and gratuities included; e-mail us at: beepeg2023@gmail.com to reserve a boxed lunch), or forage opportunistically from a nearby food truck or restaurant in the 40 minutes between the end of this session and the start of the afternoon plenary presentations.

______________________

​

Workshop 5. Saving Data: A film screening and reflection by Living Data Project participants

​

Organizers: Diane Srivastava, Gracielle Higino, Samantha Straus, Mike Lavender

Schedule: June 13, 3:15 to 4:30 pm

Location: York 2-4 Plenary

​

Description: This one hour event centers on the process of data rescue, as experienced by participants in the Living Data Project (LDP). The LDP is a Canada-wide initiative to save legacy data in ecology, evolution and the environmental sciences. We start with some examples of environmental data rescue projects. LDP graduate students who conducted internships to rescue data talk us through the process and the outcome, and reflect on what rescuing the data meant to them.

​

There will then be a screening of LDP postdoc Dr. Gracielle Higino's documentary ‚ Saving Data. This 15-minute documentary film is an ode to intergenerational memory and ecological data. It discusses the process of rescuing legacy datasets as a way to raise interest and awareness about open ecological data. We invite audience members to discuss the film and presentations and share their own journeys in data loss and data recovery. This workshop is sponsored by the CIEE’s Living Data Project.

​

Cost: this is a free event.  

Advance registration is not required 

______________________

​

Bridging western science and Indigenous approaches to education, research, and conservation: a panel discussion

​

Schedule: June 13, 3:15 to 4:15 pm

Location: Meeting Room 1

Advance registration is not required

​

This panel, consisting of five Indigenous scientists and conservation biologists, will reflect on their personal journeys in science and conservation while highlighting fundamental principles and addressing questions related to Indigenous approaches to knowledge and conservation. One goal will be to assist the research community do a better job collaborating with Indigenous colleagues and communities and bridging western and Indigenous approaches to education, knowledge, and conservation. The panel will reach out to solicit questions from conference delegates prior to the conference and will incorporate these questions into the discussion.

 

Panel:

Warren Cardinal-McTeague, University of British Columbia

Az Klymiuk, University of Manitoba

Shianne McKay, Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources

Allyson Menzies, University of Guelph

Gabriel Nemogá, University of Winnipeg

 

Moderator: Aerin Jacob, Nature Conservancy of Canada

Organizing assistance: Susan Lingle, University of Winnipeg
 

Do you have questions for the panelists discussing how to bridge Indigenous approaches and western scientists? If so, please send questions on this form by Wednesday, May 31.

​

​