Statgen seminar: history, goals, guidelines

History:

• Started in 1989
• Modeled after meetings in the U of Wisconsin population genetics group
• Original meetings ~monthly, later biweekly as the group grew
• Incorporated as a formal course in 1994 (bean counter issue: the university needs to know what actual teaching is going on, and putting a course on the books is the easiest way to achieve this.)

Goals

• Learn about each others' work and how other people think
• Improve presentation skills
• Provide feedback
• Read and critique the scientific literature
• Identify open problems
• Broaden our scientific horizons
• Foster interaction among people working in statistical genetics

Rules

• Provide ideas for topics
• Read the papers. If you don't understand everything, do not despair. Focus on what you can.
• Participate in discussions and presentations.
• Those who can, should register (all students)
• Be a relatively steady attendee
• When we have enough people, we double-up journal club presentations, with seasoned and first-year attendees work together on one presentation. The key is to work together: discuss the paper together before deciding what to present. Frequently a paper is too long to present everything, in which case discuss ahead of time what part(s) of the paper to present.