For many years now, the RSS has run short training courses, both at its Errol Street premises in London and around the UK in cities including Glasgow, Manchester and Cardiff.
Our courses are grouped into introductory or foundation courses for those without a statistical background, right through to professional courses. The latter tend to be for practising statisticians wishing to develop their skills in a particular area, such as Bayesian statistics, or statistical software such as R.
Currently, the Covid-19 pandemic has made it impossible to run our short training courses face-to-face, until at least the end of September. However, we have been able to move a number of them online, running them as ‘virtual classrooms’.
Range of virtual classrooms currently on offer
The courses currently on offer are largely software-based, in particular around R, the programming language and free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. Current courses on offer include
Creating automated reports in R,
Interactive dashboards and web apps using Shiny and
Introduction to Bayesian analysis using STAN. A new course in Analysing & forecasting Covid-19 trends has just been added this week, which focuses on 'interpreting what the current trends in number of cases, deaths and test results all mean and whether there are differences between certain groups'.
There’s also a Six Sigma Green Belt Foundation virtual classroom for anyone wishing to become RSS 18404 certified at Green Belt level. The RSS 18404 Sector Scheme is the only way organisations/individuals in the UK can be certified against ISO 18404, the international standard for people delivering Six Sigma projects and Lean improvement.
How do the virtual classrooms work?
The courses are still tutor-led, emphasises RSS head of training Stuart McKendrick. ‘Delegates are able to do exercises, ask questions and get feedback, just like they would in a face-to-face setting,’ he explains. ‘In fact, some delegates find the online format easier – there is no need to take their laptop to the teaching setting or install new software, as the online interface allows us to provide all the software which they can access in the cloud, direct from their computer at home.’
The tutors running these courses are experienced in running them online and previous feedback shows that participants highly value the fact that they are tutor-led. ‘Interactivity of the course was good even though it was online,’ one previous participant said. The tutors are cited as being ‘patient’ and the courses well-structured, with ‘plenty of time for questions and clarifications'.
Take a look at all of the short courses on offer at
rss.org.uk/training.