Course Syllabus
Table of Contents
Course Dates:
This course runs once per year in the spring. For details on the next iteration of this course, please visit the overview page.
Course Website
When registered for the course, you will be provided a personalized username and password that allows you to sign-in.
Course Directors:
Niteesh Choudhry, MD, PhD | Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Course Topics
This course includes the following topics and was designed to be taken at your own pace.
Unit 1: Introduction to CER
2 weeks
Unit 2: Data Sources
4 weeks
Unit 3: Cohort Study Design
3 weeks
Unit 4: Cohort Study Analysis
2 weeks
Unit 5: Case Control Studies & Analysis
1 week
Unit 6: Self-Controlled Studies & CER Study Design
1 week
Participant Expectations
Participants are expected to dedicate 2-4 hours of time to the course each week. Course activities include watching videos, completing statistics assessments, and responding to message board prompts. Participants will have access to all of the materials once the course launches, but will have to proceed through the materials in the presented order.
A full course schedule, including all assessment deadlines, is provided below. Participants may work through the course at their own pace, but must meet all assessment deadlines in order to remain eligible for a certificate of completion and/or CME credit certificate.
Statistics Assessments:
Participants will be required to complete statistics assessments in modules 2, 3, and 4. Each of these will provide a worked example demonstrating how to perform data transformation or statistical analysis using a provided data set. The worked example will show the code needed to complete the analysis along with annotated output. After completing the worked example, you will be asked to complete several multiple choice questions to test your completion of the assessment as well as your understanding of the concepts.
Statistics assessments have been written in R, SAS, and Stata, and participants will be shown the assessments in the language they chose in the course introduction. Please post any questions about the programming languages or the statistics assessments to the course message boards so that other participants may see the responses.
Completing the Course
Each participant is eligible for a certificate of completion upon completion of all required assessments and assignments and viewing of all course videos. There is no minimum grade for assessments.
CME Credit: CME credit is only available to MDs.
The Harvard Catalyst Education Program designates this online activity for a maximum of 18.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)TM.
The Harvard Catalyst Education Program is accredited by the Massachusetts Medical Society to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
Harvard Catalyst Education Program’s policy requires the viewing of all course videos and completion of all course assessments and activity surveys to be eligible for CME credit; no partial credit is allowed.
In order to receive CME credits, participants must complete 100% of the following by the designated timelines listed in the course schedule.
1. Watch all videos for the course.
2. Complete all module assessments by 11:59 PM on the due date.
3. Complete all multiple-choice evaluations and surveys.