A good experimental design is the first step for a successful bioinformatics analyses, the second one is to understand how to record and organise data. Most life scientists (at any career stage) store data in spreadsheets, so this is the place that many research projects start and how data are delivered to the bioinformatician. Participants will prepare data for bioinformatics analyses and improve their data organization skills.

This course is for you if:

• You are a beginner to using Excel or have experience but would like to use it more effectively
• You work in health-related sector as either clinical, administrative or academic staff - for example as a nurse, health administrator, consultant, biomedical researcher, etc.
• You have some knowledge of basic statistical terms and would like to apply them in Excel
• You need to start recording data or using already recorded data for your current or future role
• You require flexible learning format

Learning objectives of 'Using Spreadsheets for Recording Data and Metadata'

• Good data entry practices - formatting data tables in spreadsheets
• How to avoid common formatting mistakes
• Approaches for handling dates in spreadsheets
• Basic quality control and data manipulation in spreadsheets
• Applying spreadsheets to answer health-related questions