Aims

The goal of the course ”Applied Biostatistics with R” is to provide a comprehensive, research- and application-oriented introduction to biostatistical methods on medical data sets. In addition to expanding the knowledge of statistical methods, the most important learning objective is the competent application of these methods by using the statistical software R and RStudio. Half of the course is devoted to introduction, language syntax and programming, data import, data processing, and data visualization in R. The second half of the course covers simple statistical tests, generalized linear models, mixed models, and time-to-event analyses.

Course setting

This semester, the course will be held as a block course in the week from 23th March to 27th March 2026 from 8.30 a.m to 4 p.m. with an hour of lunch break in between. The course will take place at the PC pool in Walther-Rathenau-Str. 11, Rooms A20.0.1 (PC Pool 1.01). PCs are available on site – if you wish to bring your own device, please use a laptop/notebook, tablets are not recommended. In general, courses materials and recorded videos of each course session from the summer semester 2021-2024 are provided for self-study on Moodle. Please also notice a survey prior to the start on Monday 23th March to evaluate your already existing statistical knowledge and on your expectations regarding the course goals. During the course, after each chapter, we will provide additional tasks to prove your understanding and to verify your active participation (for those who need seminar achievements aka “Studienleistung” or “Teilnahmeschein”) with your solutions to be uploaded on Moodle. The course language will be English.

Achievement options

1.     SL (Studienleistung): After each chapter, we will provide additional assignments to demonstrate your understanding and active participation with your solutions to be uploaded on Moodle.
2.     PL (Prüfungsleistung): Assignment either graded or ungraded [We provide you a dataset and questions/tasks to be solved in the form of a term paper].

Groups with recognition of achievements:

•     Human medicine students as a compulsory elective in the second section of human medicine studies (Wahlpflichtfach, 3 SWS gem. §2(8) ÄApprO, PL: graded assignment)
•     Bachelor students of Biomedical Science at the medical faculty within the elective module Biomathematik/Biophysik (You can choose: SL for 3 ECTS or PL for 4 ECTS)
•     Master’s students of the program LENC and BEE at the Institute of Biology as a basic module “Personal Profiling” (You can choose: SL for 3 ECTS or PL for 4 ECTS)
•     Master’s students of the program “Infection Biology and Immunology” at the Institute of Biology mandatory within the core module 4 (CM4) “Applied Data Science” (You can choose: SL or PL ungraded assignment)
•     Members of the Graduate Academy of the University of Greifswald and the graduate programs of the University Medicine Greifswald (PhD, MD/PhD, DMD/PhD) (You can choose: SL for 3 ECTS, PL for 4 ETCS)
•     Research employees are welcome

Prioritization is given to student’s programs of Human Medicine and Biology.

How to register?

Human Medicine students should register through UAPP: https://greifswald.teachtek.de/myevents/eventdetail;id=5036
Students of other study programs should register through HIS: https://his.uni-greifswald.de/qisserver/rds?state=verpublish&status=init&vmfile=no&publishid=75011

Additionally all participants should register on Moodle: https://moodle.uni-greifswald.de/course/view.php?id=5784