Even though it may be the middle of winter, CIT Computer Training is beginning to enroll students for its spring term. Joining returning favorites are many new courses scheduled for scientists, computer support staff and end users. The classes are free and registration is available at http://training.cit.nih.gov.

Web developers and programmers can attend three new courses. "Introduction to Flash MX 2004" will cover the basics of Flash. "Building Rich Applications with Flash MX 2004" will focus more on the development of Flash applications. "Eclipse Tutorial: Usage, Tips, Tricks and Advanced Features" will help NIH staff already familiar with this tool.

CIT is offering four new classes on new or updated software applications that are widely used at NIH, both in the office and the laboratory. "Practical Applications of Microsoft Office in a Business Environment" will cover the technologies within this package and how it integrates with Sharepoint and Project 2003. "Save Your Time – Learn How to Manage Email" and "How to Get the Most Out of Outlook 2002" will look at more efficiently using email. Lastly, "Basic Skills for Managing Projects with Teamwork.com" looks at valuable resources in developing and maintaining a basic project plan using Teamwork.com.

For scientists, there are many new titles. MathWorks will present two seminars in MATLAB: "MATLAB Fundamentals and Programming Techniques," which will provide NIH staff with a comprehensive understanding of MATLAB as a programming language, and "MATLAB for Image Processing." Another course offering is "Homology Modeling Advances and Applications," which explores basic and advanced concepts of homology modeling.

Dr. Gary Daubresse from Silicon Genetics returns to teach five new GeneSpring microarray data analysis seminars. These topics include: "Importing Data & Creating Experiments," "Data Normalization," "Defining and Interpreting Your Experiments," "Quality Control & Clustering Tools" and "Statistical Analysis Tools." A series of new genetics topics include "NCBI's GenBank QuickStart," "Cluster Analysis: Hierarchical & Partitioning Methods for High Dimensional Gene Expression Data with Partek Pro," and "Browsing Genomes with the UCSC Genome Project."

The previous AFNI (Analysis of Functional NeuroImaging) courses have been combined and expanded into two multi-day seminars: "AFNI Bootcamp" and "Cortical Surface Bootcamp." The "AFNI Bootcamp" will introduce the user to FMRI data analysis and visualization with the AFNI software package. The "Cortical Surface Bootcamp" examines cortical surface creation and analysis of FMRI data on surfaces using SUMA (SUrface MApper).

In statistics, there are three new course offerings. Dr. James Malley of CIT is following up his "Elements of Modern Data Analysis," with "Elements of Modern Data Analysis II." This new course will review common problems in data analysis. Dr. Terry Cox of NEI is following up his "Statistical Analysis of R" with a new class titled "Statistical Graphics with R," which will focus on creating statistical graphics for publication or presentations. The SAS Institute will be bringing "Statistics I: Introduction to ANOVA, Regression and Logistic Regression." Current SAS/STAT users will benefit from learning how to construct graphs to analyze data, construct confidence intervals and apply multiple comparison techniques.

IT professionals will find end-user certification preparation classes of great interest. The new offerings this semester focus on the Microsoft Office Specialist certifications. Exam objectives will be covered in Microsoft Office Word 2002 Expert, Microsoft Office Excel 2002 Expert, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2002 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2002.

IT project managers will have many new options. "How to Perform an IT Risk Assessment" and "How to Write an IT Security Plan" are continuation seminars from the Certification and Accreditation at NIH meeting. These classes will further explain the certification and accreditation process. "Security Penetration Testing, a Practical Overview," will explain the penetration testing and analysis methodology (PTAM) with a description of the tools and techniques used.

To obtain full course information or to register for classes, visit the web site or call (301) 594-6248 if you wish to discuss course registration, teaching a class or other training issues.