Workshop Overview

The goal of this workshop series, presented by the Duke AI Health Community of Practice, is to support Duke’s staff members in gaining experience with scientific writing, such as posters and manuscripts. The workshop cohort is limited to 25 participants. Participants from previous cohorts are welcome to re-enroll. There is no fee to participate.

Each of the 4 sequential workshop sessions will be 2 hours and the sessions will be held virtually. Participants will be asked to be on-camera and actively interacting during class sessions, which will be held on the following dates in 2025:

• Thursday, October 16, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
• Thursday, October 23, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
• Thursday, October 30, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
• Thursday, November 6, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

The series will also have a required in-person component, when participants present the product of their work as a poster in person. The date for this is tentatively scheduled for the week of December 8-12, 2025. Additional specifics regarding date, time, and venue will be provided as these details are finalized.

There will be a soft deadline of November 21, 2025 for completion of the final project to allow sufficient time for individual feedback and for final preparation of posters.

We will ask registrants to commit to attending all 4 workshops plus the in-person component. This is because the series is designed to build on knowledge gained in each workshop, to culminate in a product to be shared with others during the poster session, and a final session to reflect on experiences and provide a path for forward development.

Participants will be asked to contribute to the pre-course and post-course surveys. These important activities helps to support course development (from information gleaned in the pre-course survey) and maximize knowledge around the course structuring and impact (from insights of the post-course survey).

Who Should Attend?

We encourage staff members at any level of seniority and experience to participate, including coordinators, project managers, project leaders, and analysts – beginners through advanced. Clinical staff from DUHS and technical staff from DHTS are also welcome and encouraged to participate. The purpose of this workshop series is to learn, and participants do not need to have previous experience in scientific writing.

Each participant will be asked to confirm their manager’s approval for them to participate in the workshop series. We encourage managers to consider this participation as potentially valuable in an employee’s training plan.

Workshop Structure

Each of the 4 virtual workshops will include lecture-based elements covering important concepts and background information, as well as interactive smaller-group breakout sections led by Duke AI Health presenters and facilitators.

Participants will be asked to attend each session live and should be prepared to be on-camera and actively participating during the interactive portions of class. Although lectures will be recorded and available to participants as a reference, the interactive components will not be recorded. Lecture slides, references, and in some cases, additional supplemental material will be made available after each class.

“Learning By Doing”

In this workshop series, we will use the AI Health Community of Practice  model of “learn by doing” for participants to grow confidence in scientific writing through hands-on experience. Each participant will develop a poster using formal scientific writing conventions, including topic selection and refinement, organization, content development, visual elements (including an introduction to basic elements of visual rhetoric and data visualization and display), ethical practices in co-authorship, use and management of references, acknowledgements, and other best practices.

Scientific posters are a widely used basis for articulating key programmatic and scientific accomplishments and results. When prepared with rigor, a poster is a “miniature manuscript” that can then be developed into a full paper. The topic of the poster will be chosen by each participant and their manager, and we will encourage participants to write about topics where they have experience and interest. This can include operational topics, processes, program descriptions, communication and dissemination, ethics, and the challenges and opportunities of translational science.

• Please note: collaborative projects involving multiple class attendees are welcomed, but please let the instructor know as soon as possible if you wish to pursue this option. Alternatives to scientific posters, such as web resources, in-depth articles, etc. may be allowed on a case-by-case basis. Please inquire with the program instructor (Jonathan McCall; jonathan.mccall@duke.edu) if you wish to pursue an alternative final project.

Program Staff

• The workshops are taught by Jonathan McCall, MS, Director of Communications for Duke AI Health.
• This opportunity is produced by Shelley Rusincovitch, MMCi, FAMIA, Managing Director of Duke AI Health and Co-Director, CTSI Biomedical Informatics & Data Science (BIDS) Pillar
• Jessica Johnstone is the project manager for the series
• Whitney Welsh, PhD, is the qualitative scientist providing evaluation for the series

We greatly appreciate the support and expertise of the CTSI Pilots Core and CTSI Workforce Development.

Registration Information – Coming Soon

Registration information for this event will be available soon. To make sure you don’t miss any updates, make sure you’re subscribed to our mailing list. We will also be providing updates on our BlueSky and LinkedIn accounts.

Please email aihealth@duke.edu if you have any questions.