SELES Spring Course 2008

Andrew and Charles ran a 5-day SELES Course using UVic Geography facilities. The event registration was handled by Event Brite

We divided the course into 1- and 2-day sessions - participants could register for one or all of the sessions. Each of the sessions was taught in the new Spatial Sciences Teaching Lab except for the SELES Symposium. The SELES Symposium was free and open to all, and will be held in a UVic Geography Board Room.

Structure
Detailed information by session:

Monday 26th May: SELES Introduction - Understanding SELES Modelling

We explored the following: What is landscape modelling? What is SELES? What does a basic SELES model look like? How do you run a SELES model? What questions can be explored with SELES? What SELES resources are available? (Hint: www.seles.info!)

Tuesday 27th May (AM/PM) & Wednesday 28th (AM): SELES Core - Building Simple SELES Models, Preparing data for SELES, working with SELES output

We looked in more depth into the building of simple SELES models. We focused on different types of spreading models, and of generating statistics about landscape pattern. Many SELES users only need to know how to prepare model inputs and then interpret results. The Wednesday morning session was for them.

Wednesday 28th May (PM): SELES Symposium - Keynote, Discussion & Community Building (FREE)

The Symposium started with a keynote by Andrew Fall, followed by talks by Marvin Eng (FPB) and Glenn Sutherland (Cortex). We will discused strengthening the SELES community through SELES.info, future symposia and support contracts.

Thursday 29th May & Friday 30th May: SELES Advanced - Building Advanced SELES Models

Andrew lead an exploration of advanced SELES programming. Topics will include recent additions to the SELES simulator, SELES batch variables, and good SELES coding practices.

Organized by MapsWest GIS Consulting and Gowlland Technologies.

Participants:

 * Doug Beckett, Ministry of Forests and Range, Prince George
 * Allen Dobb, Independent Consultant, Victoria
 * Caren Dymond, CFS, Victoria
 * Marvin Eng, Forest Practices Board, Victoria
 * Krysta Giles-Hansen, Timberline Natural Resource Group, Kelowna
 * Évan Hovington, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Chaire industrielle CRSNG-UQAT-UQ, Rouyn-Noranda
 * Dongwook Ko, University of Nevada-Reno, Reno
 * John A Nagy, University of Alberta, Edmonton
 * Zach Nelson, University of Nevada Reno, Reno
 * Gordon Nienaber, Ministry of Forests, Victoria
 * Ashley Page, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Burnaby
 * Larry Reid, Heiltsuk Tribal Council, Bella Bella
 * Jason Smith, Cortex Consultants Inc, Victoria
 * Glenn Sutherland, Cortex Consultants Inc, Victoria
 * Barry Snowdon, BC Ministry of Forests, Victoria
 * Jeff Stone, Ministry of Forests & Range, Kamloops
 * Steve Taylor, Canadian Forest Service, Victoria
 * William Wagner, Canadian Forest Service, Victoria
 * Chris West, Natural Resources Canada, Victoria

Projects
During the last two days (Advanced SELES), participants banded together and worked on one of four projects:
 * 1) SELES2008 Timber Supply Group
 * 2) SELES2008 Spreading Group
 * 3) SELES2008 Fire Group
 * 4) SELES2008 Habitat Group