The Workshop is an intensive course taught at a high level and fast pace, and thus provides no opportunities for concurrent preparation and reading. Therefore, it is most helpful to prepare for the Workshop ahead of time. Among the specific steps useful in preparing for the Workshop include the following.
- For the Workshop on Molecular Evolution, do background reading in molecular evolution and molecular phylogenetics. In particular it maybe helpful to read references such as Fundamentals of Molecular Evolution (Graur and Li 2000), Molecular Evolution (Li 1997), Molecular Evolutionary Genetics (Nei 1987), the phylogenetic inference chapter in Molecular Systematics (Swofford et al. 1996), Molecular Evolution: A Phylogenetic Approach (Page and Holmes 1998), two review papers, authored by Paul Lewis and Mark Holder (Lewis 2001, Holder and Lewis 2003), and other relevant references. This web site provides you with information regarding the material covered. You should review this information to determine areas in which you require more study before attending the Workshop.
- Become comfortable with UNIX-based operating systems. At minimum you will need to know how to log on to a system, move, copy, and delete files, change directories, and use a text editor. Check out the UNIX tutorial for more information.
- Put together an example data set relevant to your research. Although there will be example data sets provided for the computer demonstrations, having a data set with which you are familiar will be of help. For those taking the third, all-computer week you will have the opportunity to work extensively with your data. Having the data in good shape (edited and assembled) will help ensure your time is spend productively and in such a way as to take advantage of the special resources available at the Workshop.
Lecture notes and associated materials for many of the lectures and demonstrations will also be put on the web site as they become available.