Infectious disease modeling is a critical skill, and although not all students will model infectious diseases directly, many will become the consumer of such models and will need to understand the models conceptually. This makes infectious disease modeling a useful tool for all students to learn, but many students in the biological field lack experience in coding and the necessary mathematical skills. Although some resources provide the opportunity to learn the concepts of infectious disease epidemiology, most are designed as lectures, leading to passive learning. To facilitate the development of active learning despite lacking the necessary coding and mathematical skills, Andreas Handel has developed Systems Approaches to Infectious Disease Epidemiology (DSAIDE). DSAIDE is an R package that facilitates a person without any prior coding knowledge to delve into the concepts of infectious disease epidemiology. This package provides 12 simulations that can be explored at a variety of different levels and encourages the user to practice the coding, although it is not required. This R package has the potential to peak the interests of students and create a segue into learning infectious disease modeling.
- Handel A (2017) Learning infectious disease epidemiology in a modern framework. PLoS Comput Biol 13(10): e1005642.