February 15-18, 2009 Washington State Convention Center Seattle ...

REPLICATION IN FIELD AND LAB EXPERIMENTS
Sara Duke
USDA- ARS SPA
2881 F&B Road
College Station TS 77845 USA
Sara.duke@ars.usda.gov
It is typically the goal of applied biological research to apply the results of controlled studies to a broader context than only the
local conditions of an experimental location. The issue of independent experimental replication is often confused with littleto-no
true replication in both large scale studies and experiments with restricted resources. Sub-sampling of an experimental
unit that has received a treatment is inadequate to estimate the experimental variability and the issue of pseudo-replication often
results. In order to make statistical comparisons to determine a meaningful treatment effect adequate replication is necessary.
Without reasonable replication, probabilistic statements of interpretation are limited to the very specific conditions or must be
only described for the experiment at hand; being conservative with the presentation of results. With low replication levels the
confidence intervals for effect size may be very broad help researchers understand their data better. Designing experiments
with adequate local replication and conducted at multiple-location are necessary to increase the scope of inference of experimental
results. By focusing on specific hypotheses that correspond with the original objective of a study, issues of multiple
comparison techniques and statistical power can be resolved and improved.
FISH DISEASES ONLINE COURSE IN VIDEO FORMAT
Robert M. Durborow* and Boris Gomelsky
Aquaculture Division
Kentucky State University
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601 USA
robert.durborow@kysu.edu
Online courses provide subject matter that may not be available at a learning institution where the student is enrolled. The
online approach is also convenient for the student who has limited time and may not be able to attend class at a particular hour.
Basics of Fish Diseases is an online course that is offered by Kentucky State University for 3 credit hours to undergraduate and
graduate students.
The course is presented on Blackboard ® in a recorded video lecture series. These video lectures can be viewed as often as the
student desires and can be downloaded as Pod Casts that can be transported on devices such as a video iPod. Blackboard ® allows
reading assignments, photographs and video clips to be posted in the Course Documents section. The incorporation of
video into the course is especially beneficial to students. The students are able to view movie clips of pathogens and diseased
fish. Video footage of sick fish swimming in a characteristic pattern and video microscopy of pathogens are more valuable to
students compared to still photographs.