Course » How the course works
Online videos
The course is centered about a series of video tutorials. There are roughly 12 hours of videos for the Basic course and another 8 for the advanced course.
Schedule
The course is always available online. Attendees watch the videos on their own schedule. Any questions may be submitted online, and will be addressed in the chat or by zoom. Zoom discussions will be scheduled as needed.
Group discussions
A key part of the class is the opportunity for group discussions with the instructor. We will also record these and make them available to all students. For students in Europe or Australia I will schedule discussions as needed.
Exercises
For all modules there are PDFs that offer the opportunity to work through an analysis on your own, with step-by-step instructions. If you have any questions, we can discuss these during the zoom calls
Readings
For most modules there are optional readings that provide additional details on the topic.
Software
We will be using the software Comprehensive Meta-Analysis, or CMA. This software was developed with funding from the National Institutes of Health and is used by tens of thousands of researchers throughout the world. It incorporates many features that make ideal for teaching including the ability to present results in intuitive ways and to generate detailed text reports that explain the meaning of the statistics. Full disclosure: The instructor has a commercial interest in CMA.
All students will be given a free extended trial license for the duration of the course.
While we will be using this software for the examples, the course is primarily about meta-analysis rather than this specific software, and can be applied regardless of what software you employ in the future.
Handouts
For each video you may download a PDF that incorporates all components of the video in screen-shots and text. You can use this to take notes while watching the videos and to review the course in the future.
Testimonials
"I was worrying whether I can understand this content well before I attended the course. However, this fear vanished while I participated in the course. I love the teaching style of the instructor, very efficient, very knowledgeable, and very helpful. The content of the course is very helpful, covering the major issues and even further a range of topics. I enjoyed the course very much and I learned a lot from it. I'm going to use what I have learned and hopefully to come back for an advanced course (if any) in the future."
Junwen Chen - Australian National University - Sydney 2020
"I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of Dr. Michael Borenstein's online workshop. He has a unique gift of taking seemingly complex material and explaining it so intuitively. I am already applying the principles that he discusses in his modules to my research during medical school and residency. I would enthusiastically recommend this workshop to anyone looking to understand the methods of meta-analysis as well as how to interpret meta-analyses in the context of a systematic review."
Moez Karim Aziz, MD, MS - Resident Physician, Baylor College of Medicine