[Brownbag] spring seminar on human rights demography

[Liz Ozselcuk]

This spring Patrick Ball of Benetech will be offering a Demog 260 class 
from 1 to 4 on Fridays.  There may be some mis-information out there that 
the class runs from 4 to 6, which may be why attendence was low, so I 
wanted to send out this message to bring this currently underenrolled 
class to your attention.  If you are interested in attending please let 
Patrick know at pball at benetech.org, and he will direct you to any 
materials that you missed on this first day of classes.

DEMOGRAPHY 260 P 002 SEM
Course Title: 	Special Topics in Demography Seminar
Location: 	F 1-4P, 100 2232 PIEDMNT
course control number: 18238

When the world looks at human rights atrocities, we often ask ``how many 
were killed?'' In this seminar, we will review four methods used to assess 
the magnitude and pattern of mass killings: simple enumeration, household 
retrospective mortality surveys, census analysis, and estimation using 
Multiple Systems Estimation. Although substantive discussions of the 
political and historical implications of different patterns will be 
discussed as well, the focus of the class will be on understanding the 
strengths and weaknesses of various technical approaches.

Grades will be based on: -- one brief homework assignment consisting of a 
few programming problems in which students will show that they have 
grasped the link between the statistical theory and the software 
application, due on 6 April; -- presentations of course readings to be 
made during class sessions; -- a project, due on 11 May.

On the second class of the term, we will assign students to readings, and 
each student will be responsible for presenting the reading and suggesting 
the reading's relevance, strengths, and weaknesses.

The project will be involve a paper using survey estimates, census 
analysis, record linkage, multiple systems estimation, or some other 
statistical technique to assess quantitative patterns of mortality in 
conflict. Data will be provided by the instructor, but students will be 
encouraged to find new data sources. The project will be presented as a 15 
minute presentation and a paper.

Graduate standing or the permission of the instructor is required. 
Students will need to understand linear modeling; graduate training in 
statistics is recommended. The course will be taught using the R computing 
environment.