Workshop in Cambodia, August 7 to 9, 2012
Workshop on Capacity Building in Cambodian Forestry: Introduction to Statistical Analysis in "R" for Forest Resource Management
The "Workshop on Capacity Building in Cambodian Forestry: Introduction to Statistical Analysis in "R" for Forest Resource Management", was held at the Forest and Wildlife Training Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, from August 7 to 9, 2012. This workshop was co-sponsored and organized by Risk Analysis Research Center, ISM, Global COE for Ecological Adaptation, Tohoku University, and the Cambodian Forestry Bureau. This workshop was aimed at building capacity for forest resource management in Cambodia, and was designed to enable participants to use statistical software, "R", to conduct a hands-on approach to dealing with various statistical analyses on data. R is free software for statistical analysis and yet provides a wide variety of statistical and graphical techniques with continuous updates and support from developers and data scientist from all over the world. Therefore, acquisition of this software by forest researchers and practitioners in Cambodia is expected to lead to various data analysis and modeling, which in future will provide useful information for forest resource management in Cambodia.
This workshop was the first in the series to take place. It was configured to cover how to use the software, the basics of statistics, and the application of statistical model. On the first day, after a brief lecture on statistical modeling on forest resource management, the participants installed the software to their computers, and learned about simple calculation using R, as well as the rules for declaring variables in R. On the second day, the participants learned about data handling with R, which is the basis for statistical analysis using R. During the morning session on the last day of the workshop, the participants were divided into two groups based on their learning levels and each learned simple statistical analysis with R. During the afternoon session, the two groups were merged back into one, and they learned graphics with R. The workshop successfully ended with a total of 50 participants. Khmer/English simultaneous interpretation was provided during the workshop. The certificate of completion ceremony was held on the last day. All participants were pleased and very enthusiastic about this workshop and were looking forward to an event in the following year. This workshop was reported on TV news in Cambodia. It was run mainly by the Institute of Forest and Wildlife Research and Development Forestry Administration, Acting Director of Cambodia, Sokh Heng and others.
Workshop participants