University
of North Carolina School of Public Health
Department
of Epidemiology
EPID600, Principles of Epidemiology for Public Health
Welcome EPID600 Class of Summer '09
Dear EPID600 student -
Welcome to EPID600. We try to make this course inspiring and fun, but it is also a lot of work and quite complex. This announcement, unfortunately, will expose that complexity right from the start!
1) The COURSE SCHEDULE does not follow the UNC Academic Calendar for summer courses. Please see the schedule
2) DISCUSSION FORUM GROUPS - We will assign these during the second week of the course.
3) WEBSITES - public or private
All course materials can be accessed from the Blackboard course website. Most can also be accessed (without logging in) at the public website at www.unc.edu/epid600/, which can be handy if Blackboard is down or you want to skip logging in. The public site has the course schedule, access to the lecture slides with speaker notes, comments from students who have taken the course in the past, and lots of helpful information about the course and about epidemiology. This site also has the request form for asking to audit the class, get on the waiting list, obtain an extension, obtain a recommendation letter, take an incomplete, etc. There is also a convenient shortcut to the Blackboard website. In general, almost all of the course can be accessed from either site (examinations and student names are only in Blackboard).
4) SAFETY FIRST - do not open an email attachment from me unless you are sure that I sent it.
The Internet is not all fun and games any more. If you're not yet a “seasoned” Internet user, please click on “More about EPID600” on the public website (you can also get there through the Syllabus tab in Blackboard) and read about safe email practices. I also invite you to follow my practice of beginning the Subject line of EPID600 messages with “EPID600”. That practice provides a little protection against spoofed emails that appear to come from me, but mostly it helps me find EPID600 emails in my inbox.
5) COURSEPACK, TEXTBOOK
Information on the coursepack, textbook, etc. are all at our public home page www.unc.edu/epid600/
These materials are largely the same as in recent semesters.
ANXIOUS?
I'm looking forward to our class together. If you're feeling nervous about EPID600, consider this anecdote from the Prairie Home Companion:
Patient: "Doctor, I'm kind of nervous - this is my first operation."
Doctor: "I know what you mean - mine, too."
See you soon,
Vic Schoenbach
EPID160/EPID600 home page
What is epidemiology?
Should I take EPID600 or a different introductory course?
Course objectives
Course content
Grading scales
Schedules
Class times
Grading
Other resources
Information for prospective teaching assistants
[EPID160/EPID600 history]
[Vic’s home page]
Updated 5/5/2009