Check out topics we've recently covered, as well as topics we plan to cover soon in our Current Topics (HCS 8830) and Methods (HCS 7806) Courses:
Spring 2024
HCS 7806: Publishing in the Tri-Society Journals
When: Full semester SP24
Instructor: Laura Lindsey (lindsey.233@osu.edu)
The purpose of this methods course is to understand publishing guidelines of Tri-Society journals, including Agronomy Journal, Crop Science, Agricultural and Environmental Letters, and Crop, Forage, and Turfgrass Management, and produce a draft publication that will be submitted to one of these journals. Students should have data analyzed prior to taking this course. New students will be permitted to write a literature review instead of a journal article.
Autumn 2023
HCS 7806: Using SAS for applied research analysis
When: Full semester AU23
Instructor: Alex Lindsey (lindsey.227@osu.edu)
The purpose of this methods course is to help students understand how to use SAS to effectively analyze data collected from field research trials. Students will be expected to have their own datasets to use for the class. Focused analysis techniques will be defined by the students, and may include designs such as RCBD, split-plot RCBD, RCBD with subsamples, and (potentially) repeated measures. Students will gain experience operating the MIXED and GLIMMIX procedures, in addition to possibly the REG, NLIN, and CORR procedures.
SUmmer 2023
HCS 8830: TBA
When: 8 week term beginning in June
Instructor: Joe Scheerens (scheerens.1@osu.edu)
Spring 2023
HCS 8830: Evolution under domestication
When: Second half of SP23
Instructor: Kristin Mercer (mercer.97@osu.edu) & Lev Jardón Barbolla
This course will provide an interdisciplinary approach to understand domestication as an evolutionary process of adaptation towards enhanced use value, mediated by the niche construction process. With emphasis on crop plants, we will review the impact of domestication in different levels of organization, from genetics to life history traits and domestication above the organism level (i.e. landscape, agroecosystem). The course aims to bring a historical perspective of the domestication process and its intertwining with the diversity of agricultural practices. Students will be required to present summaries of 1-2 papers and lead subsequent discussions.
HCS 8830: College Teaching Strategies and Perceptions
When: First half of SP23
Instructor: Alex Lindsey (lindsey.227@osu.edu)
This course will help students understand how teaching practices can and need to be adapted over time, and the pedagogical theory driving instructional methods. Focus areas will be defined by the students, and may include areas such as: instructional methods, novel learning and teaching experiences, student demographics and inclusion, and curricular objectives and assessment. Students will be required to lead discussion of one paper and provide a brief overview of the content.
HCS 7806: Methods in Plant Sciences - Multivariate Statistics
When: Full semester SP23
Instructor: Dave Barker (barker.169@osu.edu)
A survey of multivariate analysis of biological data, including hands-on analysis using SAS and/or R. Students will have scope to analyze their own data using a variety of multivariate approaches.
Autumn 2022
HCS 8830: Plant Resistance
When: Second half of AU22
Instructor: David Francis (francis.77@osu.edu)
A literature-based course exploring the history and contemporary understanding of plant resistance to disease. We will begin by an exploration of the "gene-for-gene" hypothesis, continue through the cloning of resistance genes, touch on the ecological, evolutionary, epidemiological implications, and conclude with the current understanding that immune functions characteristic of plants represent a conserved mechanism that functions across kingdoms.
HCS 8830: Habits for Professional Success
When: Full semester AU22
Instructors: Wendy Klooster (klooster.2@osu.edu), Andrea Gschwend (gschwend.2@osu.edu) & Guil Signorini (signorini.2@osu.edu)
The course will use the bestseller “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey to engage students in discussion of strategies to develop productive and deliberate habits. This course will create an honest and fertile environment to discuss potential approaches to improve professional habits, such as proactivity, time management, and collaboration, and introduce new behavior in one’s routine. This course will focus on habits that specifically benefit research and academic outcomes but engaged participants may experience positive impacts in multiple dimensions of life.
HCS 7806: Data Visualization in R
When: Full semester AU22 (Tuesdays 3:55-5:45pm)
Instructor: Jessica Cooperstone (cooperstone.1@osu.edu)
This course aims to introduce students to the principles and practice of data visualization. Students will learn fundamental principles of data visualization and create figures that appropriately and ethically represent their data. Data visualizations will be created in the R programming environment, using tools including the grammar of graphics implemented in ggplot2. In the process of creating visualizations, students will also become familiar with data handling and wrangling in R.
You do not need to be an R expert for this class, but I will assume working-level knowledge of R programming. If you have no experience with R, but would still like to take this class, you can. I ask then you get yourself up to speed by taking this free online class https://www.edx.org/course/data-science-r-basics (audit only) before the start of the 3rd week of class. Tips and tricks in R will be scattered throughout the course material.
Spring 2022
HCS 7806: Publishing in the Tri-Society Journals
Instructor: Laura Lindsey (lindsey.233@osu.edu)
The purpose of this methods course is to understand publishing guidelines of Tri-Society journals, including Agronomy Journal, Crop Science, Agricultural and Environmental Letters, and Crop, Forage, and Turfgrass Management, and produce a draft publication that will be submitted to one of these journals. Students should have data analyzed prior to taking this course.
HCS 7806: Hydroponics Crop Production Methodologies
Instructors: Chieri Kubota (kubota.10@osu.edu) & Mark Kroggel (kroggel.4@osu.edu)
Greenhouse laboratory course for graduate students who are interested in learning modern crop production methodologies to consider in their research. The course will provide hands-on practices of greenhouse hydroponic crop production – leafy crops, tomato, and more using crop production facilities similar to commercial production settings. Students will also learn greenhouse environmental sensors and data interpretations. This course is for graduate students to learn the methodologies but the greenhouse laboratory setting is shared with another course for undergraduate student (HCS 4301 Hydroponic Crop Production Lab). Therefore, interactions with HCS 4301 students are expected through the course.
Autumn 2021
HCS 8830: Habits for Professional Success
Instructors: Andrea Gschwend (gschwend.2@osu.edu), Wendy Klooster (klooster.2@osu.edu) & Guil Signorini (signorini.2@osu.edu)
This course steps out of the usual technical/analytical training in horticulture & crop science and attempts to guide students on developing behavioral and interpersonal skills. The course will use the bestseller “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey as point of departure. Students will engage with three HCS faculty members and discuss strategies to develop productive and deliberate habits. There are challenges in recognizing weaknesses in one’s personal habits and turning them into opportunities for improvement; however, this course will accomplish this goal by creating an honest and fertile environment to discuss potential approaches to improve professional habits, such as proactivity, time management, and collaboration, and introduce new behavior in one’s routine. This course will focus on habits that specifically benefit research and academic outcomes, but engaged participants may experience positive impacts in multiple dimensions of life.
HCS 8830: Plant Hormone Signal Transduction
Instructor: JC Jang (jang.40@osu.edu)
This journal club class focuses on the discussion of most recent advancement in the signal transduction mechanisms of ABA, auxin, BR, CK, ethylene, GA, JA, and SA. Additional emphases include crosstalk of different hormones and application of signal transduction mechanism in plant synthetic biology.
HCS 7806: Using SAS for Applied Research Trial Analysis
Instructor: Alex Lindsey (lindsey.227@osu.edu)
Summer 2021
HCS 8830: Current research topics on controlled environment plant physiology and technology
Instructor: Chieri Kubota (kubota.10@osu.edu)
Students will learn key concepts and research status of controlled environment agriculture. Each student will review a selected recent research publication, with focus on plant physiology and controlled environment technology. Students will evaluate the contents analytically and synthesize the information to present to other peer students in the course and also develop a corresponding impact statement of the finding to better communicate with the relevant industry stakeholders. The goal of this course is to get the most up-to-date understanding of the controlled environment crop physiology research and communicate the impact effectively in a public space.
Spring 2021
HCS 8830: Cover Crops in Midwestern Cropping Systems
Instructor: Mark Sulc (sulc.2@osu.edu)
In this current topics course, the students will explore and discuss the peer-reviewed literature to identify what is known concerning the use of cover crops in agronomic cropping systems. The focus will be on grain crop systems in the Corn Belt region but examples from other regions will be considered that inform the potential of cover crop use in this region. We will answer such as questions as, what are the benefits of cover crops and what are the opportunities and challenges for using cover crops within our grain cropping systems? Possible topics to explore include: effects of diversifying cropping systems with cover crops (eg. environmental and subsequent crop effects), managing cover crops for weed, insect, and disease control within cropping systems, cover crop species selection, rotational strategies for cover crop incorporation into cropping systems, establishment and termination of cover crops, economic considerations of cover crop use, soil benefits of cover crops, and options for generating additional income from cover crops. The students will identify the gaps in our knowledge of cover crop use within Midwestern grain cropping systems. The exact outline of covered topics and scheduling of the course will be determined in a collaborative manner between the instructor and the students.
HCS 7806: Multivariate Statistics
Instructor: Dave Barker (barker.169@osu.edu)
A survey of multivariate analysis of biological data, including hands-on analysis using SAS and/or R, MANOVA, PCA, Factor Analysis, Canonical Correlation, Discriminant Analysis
HCS 7806: Systems Approach Field Research
Instructor: Marília Chiavegato (chiavegato.1@osu.edu)
The goal of the course is to introduce students to holistic and systems approach field research. The differences between reductionistic and holistic research approaches will be explored. We will discuss research routine methods to deal with complex relationships within agroecosystems (plant-animal-soil-water-atmosphere). This course will provide students with the basic concepts of experimental design and data analysis in systems approach field experiments. To get the most out of this class students should have a course in basic statistical methods.
Autumn 2020
HCS 7806: Methods in Data Visualization
Instructor: Jessica Cooperstone (cooperstone.1@osu.edu)
Gain additional skills in transforming your raw data to publication-quality figures.
Summer 2020
HCS 8830: Weed Seed Biology
Instructor: Doug Doohan (doohan.1@osu.edu)
This class will explore contemporary literature dealing with the biology of buried weed seeds and research methods used to explore the same. The class will meet via Zoom for 4 hours each week during the May Semester and will receive a letter grade. Students will be expected to contribute to all discussions and lead one or more. Interested students should contact Dr. Doohan
HCS 7806: Fundamentals of Molecular Population Genetics
Instructor: Jonathan Fresnedo (fresnedoramirez.1@osu.edu)
The aim of this course is to enable graduate students to become familiar with historical conceptual foundations in population genetics and to examine applications of these concepts in the analysis of molecular data. The goal of this course is that graduate students acquire theoretical concepts and insights to interpret molecular population genetic analyses for subsequent, independent pursuits of literature reviews or organized study groups to address advanced topics related to population genetics.
Spring 2020
HCS 8830: Abiotic stress tolerance
Instructors: Kristin Mercer (mercer.97@osu.edu) & Leah McHale (mchale.21@osu.edu)
The purpose of this journal club is: To better understand mechanisms of abiotic stress tolerance in plants. To differentiate between plastic responses and adaptations, whether inducible or canalized. To understand how researchers have explored the genetic basis of abiotic stress tolerance. Papers and discussions will emphasize these themes, especially within the context of agricultural plants and issues facing agriculture due to global change.
HCS 7806: Systems Approach Field Research
Insructor: Marília Chiavegato (chiavegato.1@osu.edu)
The goal of the course is to introduce students to holistic and systems approach field research. The differences between reductionistic and holistic research approaches will be explored. We will discuss research routine methods to deal with complex relationships within agroecosystems (plant-animal-soil-water-atmosphere). This course will provide students with the basic concepts of experimental design and data analysis in systems approach field experiments. To get the most out of this class students should have a course in basic statistical methods.
HCS 7806: Publishing in the Tri-Society Journals
Instructor: Laura Lindsey (lindsey.233@osu.edu)
The purpose of this methods course is to understand publishing guidelines of Tri-Society journals, including Agronomy Journal, Crop Science, Agricultural and Environmental Letters, and Crop, Forage, and Turfgrass Management, and produce a draft publication that will be submitted to one of these journals. Students should have data analyzed prior to taking this course.
HCS 7806: Introduction to concepts of Bayesian Statistics
Instructor: Jonathan Fresnedo (fresnedoramirez.1@osu.edu)
This course will provide an overview about methods of Bayesian statistical inference. The class has a humble objective: that students learn (or are at least become aware) of the vocabulary, terminology and concepts regarding this type of statistical inference, which has increasingly grown in popularity in scientific literature. Explanations to the terms and concepts, as well as hands-on data processing will be included. Mathematical foundations will not be the core of the course; however, applications based on the analysis of datasets using JASP and R will be covered during the labs. The evaluation will be based on quizzes and preparing a glossary.
It is recommended that students interested in the class have already taken a course of basic statistical methods (experimental design is not necessarily but a course on descriptive statistics is required) and have some experience with the Statistical Language R.
Autumn 2019
HCS 7806: Code Clues: Deciphering SAS Output
Instructor: Alex Lindsey (lindsey.227@osu.edu)
Students will gain experience looking through SAS code and output to discern where possible errors can be seen, as well as what measures can be done to address some of these issues. Emphasis will be placed on model development and output discernment for common field experimental designs, such as randomized complete block and split-plot RCBD. Students will be expected to build models for the class related to their experimental data and design, and gain experience in examining output tables to troubleshoot common issues with code construction and placement of terms in the model.
HCS 8830: Plant hormone signal transduction mechanism
Instructor: JC Jang (jang.40@osu.edu)
Topics of presentation: Abscisic Acid (ABA), Auxin, Brassinosteroids (BRs), Cytokinins (CKs), Ethylene, Gibberellins, Methyl Jasmonates, Peptide hormones, Salicylic Acid (SA) & Stringolactones.
Summer 2019
HCS 8830: Current research topics on controlled environment plant physiology and technology
Instructor: Chieri Kubota (kubota.10@osu.edu)
Students will review recent research publications in the areas of controlled environment crop production, with focus on plant physiology and controlled environment technology. Students will take turns and select papers with the intent to understand and evaluate the contents analytically. Then students will synthesize the information to present to other peer students in the course and also develop a corresponding impact statement of the finding to better communicate with the relevant industry stakeholders. The goal of this course is to get the most up-to-date understanding of the controlled environment crop physiology research and communicate the impact effectively in a public space.
Spring 2019
HCS 7806: Scientific Writing: publishing in peer-reviewed journals
Instructor: Michelle Jones (jones.1968@osu.edu)
This methods course will provide graduate students with an opportunity to improve their scientific writing skills. Students will also receive insight, and develop necessary skills that will assist them in navigating the scientific publishing process from start to finish. Students will have completed a manuscript final draft using their own research data by the end of the semester.
HCS 8830: Crop Mythbusters: What Works and What Doesn't
Instructor: Laura Lindsey (lindsey.233@osu.edu)
The purpose of this current topics course is to introduce students to non-traditional farming practices they may encounter and to determine if these non-traditional practices are supported by the current literature.
Autumn 2018
HCS 8830: Current Topics in Metabolomics
Instructor: Jessica Cooperstone (cooperstone.1@osu.edu)
This journal club will focus on critically reviewing and evaluating recent publications in metabolomics, with a focus on applications in plants, foods and human health. The goals of this course are to increase student familiarity with reading and interpreting the metabolomics literature, and to understand ways in which metabolomics may be a useful approach to students’ research.
HCS 7806: Using Multimedia to Communicate Science to the Public
Instructor: Leah McHale (mchale.21@osu.edu)
This course is aimed at graduate students seeking to further their science communication abilities. Primarily, students will work collaboratively to create multi-media content aimed at the general public and communicating a topic related to plant science or food production. There will be the opportunity to host these media on HCS websites including the departmental website and Ohio State’s Plant Breeding website.
Summer 2018
HCS 8830: Senescence of Plant Organs
Instructor: Joe Scheerens (scheerens.1@osu.edu)
Spring 2018
HCS 8830: Plant hormone signal transduction mechanism
Instructor: JC Jang (jang.40@osu.edu)
Topics of presentation: Abscisic Acid (ABA), Auxin, Brassinosteroids (BRs), Cytokinins (CKs), Ethylene, Gibberellins, Methyl Jasmonates, Peptide hormones, Salicylic Acid (SA), and Stringolactones.
Autumn 2017
HCS 7806: Introduction to concepts of Bayesian Statistics
Instructor: Jonathan Fresnedo (fresnedoramirez.1@osu.edu)
This course will provide an overview about methods of Bayesian statistical inference. The class has a humble objective: that students learn (or are at least become aware) of the vocabulary, terminology and concepts regarding this type of statistical inference, which has increasingly grown in popularity in scientific literature. Explanations to the terms and concepts, as well as some hands-on data processing will be included. Calculations would not be the core of the course; however, the analysis of datasets using R, JAGS and Stan are going to be covered during the labs.
HCS 7806: Small Plot Research Methods and Equipment
Instructor: Laura Lindsey (lindsey.233@osu.edu)
The purpose of this methods course is to discuss small plot research methods for agronomic crops. Students will learn about basic equipment maintenance, how the research equipment works, and have the opportunity to harvest soybeans and plant wheat.
Summer 2017
HCS 7806: Extraction, Separation, Identification, and Quantification of Plant Compounds
Instructors: Joe Scheerens (scheerens.1@osu.edu) & Josh Blakeslee (blakeslee.19@osu.edu)
In this course, students will learn to apply specific techniques and equipment for extracting, identifying and quantifying plant compounds with an emphasis on secondary products. Upon completion, they will appreciate theoretical and practical aspects of chromatography (TLC, GC, HPLC, FPLC) and electrophoresis, as well as spectrophotometric assays designed to measure purity and activity of extracted compounds. They will also understand how tissue, cell, organelle complexity affects extraction of desired compounds and recognize optimal choices to maximize yields and purity of desired compounds. The importance of sampling error and how to minimize it; and the importance of both replication and the use of proper controls (e.g., internal and external standards) will also be emphasized.
Spring 2017
HCS 7806: Using Multimedia to Communicate Science to the Public
Instructor: Leah McHale (mchale.21@osu.edu)
This course is aimed at graduate students seeking to further their science communication abilities. Primarily, students will create visual content aimed at the general public and communicating a topic related to plant science or food production. These media will be hosted on Ohio State’s Plant Breeding website and students will work collaboratively to update the site content.
HCS 7806: Multivariate Methods using SAS and R
Instructor: Dave Barker (barker.169@osu.edu)
Course will cover a brief survey of multivariate analysis of biological data. This will be a hands-on course using SAS & R and will be of greatest benefit for students with their own data [this will work best with a data matrix of 20-200 rows (individual plots/cases) and 5-20 columns (observations on the same plot/case) – no missing data].
HCS 8830: Crop Mythbusters- What Works and What Doesn't
Instrcutor: Laura Lindsey (lindsey.233@osu.edu)
We'll discuss non-traditional farming practices and determine if they are supported by the current literature.