Course Overview

Synthesis Skills for Early Career Researchers (SSECR; [SEE-ker]) is a course organized by the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network. This course aims to address the need for more comprehensive interpersonal and data skills in ecology. You can find more information on SSECR at the LTER Network page for the course.

Some specific course priorities include:

Citing These Materials

We hope this course is useful to you and encourage you to use these materials! If you do use these materials, please use the following citation:

Lyon, N.J., Kappel, C., Elmendorf, S., Kui, L., Maurer, G. E., De La Rosa, G., & Downs, M. (2025). Synthesis Skills for Early Career Researchers (SSECR) (v1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16969471

R Packages

So far, the code facets of this course are taught primarily in R. Specific R packages are described and loaded in each module as they are needed but to quickly ensure that you have most of the needed packages, feel free to copy and run the following code. Note that if you do not already have the librarian package, you’ll need to un-comment the first line and install it before running the second line. Packages are in alphabetical order

# install.packages("librarian")
librarian::shelf(cowplot, exactextractr, lterdatasampler, maps, psych, sf, supportR, terra, tidyverse)

Course Structure

Course participants meet for two hours, weekly, at the same time each week. Each session covers a module (linked in the sidebar on the left of this page) that includes a blend of technical and interpersonal skills relevant for inclusive synthesis and team work on the chosen group projects.

Project groups will also meet at a time of their own choosing to make project-related decisions (project direction, ground rules, AI policy, organizational approaches, etc.) and individuals will pursue independent project work, including data discovery, analysis, interpretation, and writing. Project mentors are encouraged to participate in work sessions about 5 times throughout the term.

All the instructional materials are compiled in this website, which is accompanied by an online workbook containing discussion prompts and interactive exercises. Each participant can make a copy of the workbook to create their own space for personal notes and resources.

Key resources are linked throughout the modules and assembled in the Resources section at the end.

Course participants meet for three hours, bi-weekly, at the same time each week. Sessions combine hands-on instruction in technical and soft skills that are relevant for inclusive synthesis. Some team work on chosen group projects will be included in the main instructional blocks. We expect teams to devote a similar amount of time outside of class sessions to make progress on projects.

Each session also includes networking opportunities with successful synthesis scientists.

  1. Instruction (~120 minutes): Each session will focus on a specific instructional topic, with technical skills, team-science skills, and communication topics interspersed throughout the year. The discussion will be limited to official course participants, but instructional materials for each topic will be available online, allowing individuals or site- or topic-based groups to follow along independently.
    • Technical skills will build on earlier lessons and are not intended to be stand-alone modules.
    • The course will include social and leadership skills required to bring a synthesis project from idea to completion (or, for larger projects to completed proposal) and will include techniques for ensuring that multiple thinking and learning styles are respected and valued.

Project groups will also meet at a time of their own choosing to work on projects. Project mentors are encouraged to participate in work sessions at about 5 times throughout the term.

Course Scheduling

All dates are in 2026. Icon legend: Interpersonal Skill Expert | Technical Skill Expert. Instructor order reflects order of content within each module.

Date Module Primary Instructors
8 / 20 0. Course & Project Introductions / Course Instructors
9 / 10 1. Synthesis Team Fundamentals Nick Lyon
Marty Downs
Carrie Kappel
9 / 17 2. Project Organization & AI Assistance Nick Lyon
Sarah Elmendorf
9 / 24 3. Reproducible & Successful Teams Nick Lyon
Carrie Kappel
10 / 01 4. Group Dialogue & Data Searches Carrie Kappel
Greg Maurer
10 / 08 5. Good Meetings & Visualizing Data Carrie Kappel
Nick Lyon
Sarah Elmendorf
10 / 15 6. Data Logs & Project Scope Sarah Elmendorf
Marty Downs
10 / 22 7. Plan the Work Marty Downs
Nick Lyon
10 / 29 8. Build Consensus & Do Quality Control Carrie Kappel
Nick Lyon
11 / 05 9. Tools for Meetings & Data Wrangling Carrie Kappel
Nick Lyon
11 / 12 10. Intellectual Credit Marty Downs
11 / 19 11. Group Stats Presentations / SSECR Participants!
11 / 26 No Class! –
12 / 03 12. Making Reports & Websites Marty Downs
Nick Lyon
12 / 10 13. Looking Ahead & Spatial Data Marty Downs
Nick Lyon
12 / 17 14. Share the Story TBD
TBD Final Project Symposium SSECR Participants!
TBD Presentations on LTER Community Call SSECR Participants!
Date Module Primary Instructor(s)
9/5/24 Version Control Nick Lyon; Angel Chen
9/16-20/24 Reproducibility Best Practices Nick Lyon
10/3/24 Data Discovery & Management Li Kui; Marty Downs
10/17/24 Team Sciences Practices Marty Downs; Carrie Kappel
10/31/24 Inclusive Facilitation Carrie Kappel
11/14/24 Data Visualization & Exploration Sarah Elmendorf; Nick Lyon
12/5/24 Project Management Marty Downs
12/19/24 Supporting Divergent, Emergent, and Convergent Thinking Carrie Kappel
1/16/25 Data Wrangling Nick Lyon
1/30/25 Authorship & Intellectual Credit Marty Downs
2/13/25 Canceled
2/27/25 Analysis & Modeling Nick Lyon
3/13/25 Next Steps & Logic Models Marty Downs
3/27/25 Communicating Findings Gabriel de la Rosa
4/10/25 Reproducible Reports Nick Lyon
4/24/25 Bonus Module / Optional Prep TBD
5/8/25 Optional Prep TBD
5/22/25 Final Project Symposium SSECR Participants!
5/28/25 Public Presentations on LTER Community Call SSECR Participants!

Course Policies

Generative AI

Generative artificial intelligence (hereafter “genAI”) can feel unavoidable–particularly in data science contexts. As the instructors of the course, we don’t feel it’s appropriate to dictate how or where you use genAI, though for the purposes of this course, we do have some recommendations.

Broadly, we can divide genAI considerations into two bins: using it by/for yourself versus using it with your project group.

What “responsible” genAI use actually consists of is ill-defined (at time of writing), but broadly many people can agree that:

  1. You should use genAI to augment your learning, not replace it!

We hope that SSECR leaves you with a set of skills that are useful in many facets of your career going forward and developing “muscle memory” through repetitive practice is a critical part of that.

  1. All genAI outputs should be checked before being relied upon.

Ideally, use of genAI should be start and end with a human. You should carefully consider the prompt and inputs that you use and check the output to make sure it is exactly what you expected. Both pieces of this can be tricky to do if you are not already proficient in the skill for which you’re using genAI so keep that in mind. Even if you possess that skill, remember to still set aside time to review genAI outputs before accepting them.

GenAI use in a team context is, in some ways, stickier than when considering using it for yourself. Your group will need to reach consensus on how/whether to use genAI for project work because, ultimately, all of your names will be on any products the group produces.

NoteDiscussion Tools

Modules in this course will provide you with tools for engaging in meaningful dialogue with your group! If you feel unprepared to discuss as a group, don’t worry, we’ll help you gain the skills to feel more comfortable within the first few weeks of the course.

So, we recommend the following:

  1. Discuss genAI comfortability with the group as early as possible!

Get specific! Are you okay with using it to refactor code? What about writing first draft text? Brainstorming research questions?. You’ll want to have chatted about this stuff before someone uses genAI in a way that feels reasonable to them but deeply unreasonable to another group members. Think about ways to ask for consent and record that consent and listen from a place of trying to understand. If you normally use genAI for every facet of your work, you’ll likely have to use it less to compromise with the group. If you don’t use genAI at all, you may need to consider which use-cases you are more comfortable with the group using genAI for.

  1. Document your use of genAI!

Write down information on how you use genAI as you use it. This might include what models you used, when you used them, the specific text of the prompt you used, or other related factors. This documentation will be useful when you write up an eventual product and will also help make sure that your group is using genAI in ways that are consistent with your discussion about how community norms in this sphere (see point #1). Writing it down as you go will help make sure you don’t forget that you used genAI for some piece of the project months later when you’re writing it up.

  1. Disclose your use of genAI in any/all products that you create!

If you document your use of genAI (see point #2), this should be fairly straightforward! You want to avoid getting a paper rejected because you said you used genAI for “manuscript writing” so leaning on your specific documentation of genAI use will help you be completely forthright about your use of these tools. This will help avoid any awkward or professionally-damaging situations around undisclosed genAI use.

Attendance

If you get sick, observe a religious holiday unaccounted for by the SSECR schedule, have to miss class for an interview, or simply don’t think you can handle class on a given day, please email the course instructors as early as possible to let us know that you won’t be in class with a (brief) explanation. This will help us to share resources we’ll cover in class with you and plan for a smaller in-class community while you are out. Our hope is that this course will be somewhere you want to attend, but we totally understand that you have many demands on your time and sometimes life happens!

Please keep in mind that your presence in and contributions to class are important both to your understanding of the material and the creation and maintenance of an in-class community.

Usability, Accessibility, and Design

We are committed to creating a course that is inclusive in its design. If you encounter barriers, please let the instructors know immediately so that we can determine if there is a design adjustment that can be made or if an accommodation might be needed to overcome the limitations of the design. We are always happy to consider creative solutions as long as they do not compromise the intent of the learning activity. We welcome feedback that will assist us in improving the usability and experience for all students.

Name, Gender Identity, and/or Gender Expression

You provided a name when you first applied to be a part of the course but we will gladly honor your request to be addressed by an alternate name. We will also use whichever pronouns you identify with. Please advise us of your pronouns and/or chosen name early in the course so that we can ensure that we treat you respectfully throughout the course.

Code of Conduct

Group work is a significant part of this course explicitly in the synthesis project facet as well as implicitly by the collaborative nature of many of the modules. We expect that you will be mutually respectful with one another both in and outside of class time. We will ask you questions during the course and during class is also an ideal time for you all to ask us questions that you have on course topics or policies. We don’t believe that “dumb questions” exist, and expect that you treat your peers’ questions with the respect you’d like your questions to be with. We will learn more together in an environment where we build one another up than we would in one where we fail to support one another.

The NCEAS and LTER Codes of conduct both apply to SSECR class meetings and offer reporting options should that become necessary.