"For my current job role, PHDA 06 evaluation course reinforced work planning, stakeholder engagement planning, and reporting planning skills -- their corresponding activities are prevalent at my job."
PHDA testimonials
PHDA 06 Health Services Program Monitoring and Evaluation
PHDA full testimonial
- How did you learn about the program and what motivated you to enroll?
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I was looking for a professional development opportunity to brush up my data analysis skills and further develop them. I found about the program online through my own search. Reviewing the course offerings, I quickly thought the program would be a great fit for me.
- Tell us about your course experience. What skills did you develop and which courses provided the greatest benefit to you?
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All four courses I have taken offered different benefits. Epidemiological statistics was a great review with additional learnings. I appreciated gaining practical experience with tools I wasn’t previously familiar with – e.g. SAS and ArcGIS. Through Program Monitoring and Evaluation, I have gained a new skillset and understanding of evaluation that I can apply to my professional work.
- How have you been able to (or how do you plan to) apply your new skills in your work/research?
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As noted above, I have been able to apply tools I’ve learned from program evaluation to my current work, for our program evaluation. Although I haven’t directly applied other data analysis skills to my work yet, I hope to do so soon.
- What do you think were the strengths of this program? Please provide examples.
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Great instructors with content expertise who are also very accessible for extra support, good class size with diverse classmates, and flexibility that the online learning offers.
- Would you recommend this program to others? If so, what recommendations/suggestions would you give those interested in applying to this program?
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Yes. If anyone is interested in one of the courses offered, I would encourage them to look into the certificate program as I think they would likely find other courses also interesting and valuable in strengthening population health data analysis skills. I would also emphasize that although online learning offers flexibility they would need to be able to set aside a chunk of time each week to successfully complete the course and make the most of it.
PHDA Overall program/course experience
"It was really good for me to gain more experience working with large data sets and use a secure research environment to get used to the complexities of various kinds of datasets we come across daily. The spatial data and network analysis work, applied longitudinal analysis techniques and foundational SAS skills I learned really benefitted my research work. Now when I am faced with new problems, I feel better equipped and much more confident to handle them.
I have done some online courses before. I felt the courses in this program were well organized. The labs were very useful and very applied, instructors were always available to answer questions and the weekly or biweekly course modules provided structure but also some flexibility."
PHDA 03 Population Health and Geographical Information Systems
"Overall, the PHDA 03 course experience was great. The greatest benefit to me was learning about GIS and practicing the learning through lab assignments with ArcGIS."> read full testimonial
PHDA Overall program/course experience
"I enjoyed all the courses. In particular, I found the GIS course very interesting and fun as I had never worked in this subject area before. I also benefitted from learning new SAS skills in other PHDA courses. Prior to taking the program, I had no knowledge of SAS.
The instructors were all very knowledgeable and experienced. They really supported students through engaging conversations and encouragement for our work assignments. The PHDA courses catered to both beginner students as well as those with experience in the field. Instructors were always willing to provide extra resources and support – the courses were never boring!"
University of British Columbia, 201-2206 East Mall, Vancouver BC V6T 1Z3
Health Data Research Network Canada (HDRN) member
International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) member
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