Introductory Courses

These courses are aimed at trial managers, data managers, trial assistants, research nurses and trial practitioners new to academic cancer clinical trials. These are introductory courses aimed at those wishing to expand their knowledge.

Available courses and Materials

PIS Online Workshop – how to design clear and accessible Patient Information Sheets 08/07/2025

Description:

Description:

Patient Information Sheets (PIS) are a key document for potential participants to make an informed decision about whether to take part in a clinical study. While there is clear guidance from the Health Research Authority (HRA) on content and regulatory requirements, PIS are customised for each clinical trial and the specific patient population. Choosing the right language and format for patient facing materials for research studies and clinical trials still greatly varies and depends on the skills and experience of the team putting them together.

In this workshop attendees will gain useful insights on how to work on the format, language and delivery of the PIS thanks to the participation of patient representatives with experience in clinical trials of different phases and with different clinical interventions. The session includes an initial overview of the HRA guidance on the PIS design, an introduction to writing in plain English and a patient’s perspective in providing consent to a clinical study, followed by group work where research staff will go into virtual breakout rooms with Patient and Public representatives to review together a PIS that will be provided to the attendees a week prior to the course. Most importantly, at the end of the course, participants will be provided with a “PIS Checklist”: a memorandum of the considerations to take into account when designing (or reviewing) a Patient Information Sheet.

This session will take place online via Zoom

Last booking date 22 June 2025

Trainer:

Course tutors: Linda von Neree, Patient and Public Involvement Associate at the CRUK UCL CTC, Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Manager at the NIHR Blood and Transplant Research Unit (BTRU) at University of Oxford and PPI Trainer at the NIHR UCL Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre (UCLH BRC)

Start date:

08/07/2025

Start time:

10.00

End time:

12.30

Cost:

Fees & Registration

This course is free for staff from Units within Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology (ICTM) which are:

• Cancer Research UK & UCL Cancer Trials Centre

• Comprehensive Clinical Trials Unit at UCL

• Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit at UCL

• PRIMENT Clinical Trials Unit

The free places require a password to book, if you work within the ICTM please email ctc.training@ucl.ac.uk to request this. Emails must be sent from your UCL account and include your name, job title, and the department which you are working in.

Attendees from outside the ICTM will be required to pay an attendance fee. Fees are based on the attendee's organisation as follows:

£50 for attendees from non-profit organisations

£100 for attendees from for-profit organisations

Please register for this course via the UCL online store. If you have any queries please contact the CTC training administrator via ctc.training@ucl.ac.uk

Please note payment is by payment or credit card only

Trial outcomes - what are we trying to measure? - Thursday 3 July 2025

Description:

This session, aimed at non-statisticians, will cover the most common primary outcomes measures used in early and late phase cancer trials.

Participant swill learn what makes a good outcome measure, how outcomes measures are defined and what data need to be collected to assess the outcome, especially for tumour response assessment and time to event measures such as survival and disease (orprogression) free survival.

Trainer:

Will Wilson / Amy Kirkwood

Start date:

03/07/2025

Start time:

10.00

End time:

13.00

Cost:

Fees & Registration

This course is free for staff from Units within Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology (ICTM) which are:

Other UCL attendees who are required to pay the course fee can do this by reserving a free place on the online store and then paying by IDT, please email ctc.training@ucl.ac.uk who can assist you with this. Attendees from outside the ICTM will be required to pay an attendance fee. Fees are based on the attendee's organisation as follows:

£50 for attendees from non-profit organisations

£100 for attendees from for-profit organisations

Please register for this course via the UCL online store. If you have any queries please contact the CTC training administrator via ctc.training@ucl.ac.uk

Please note payment is by payment or credit card only

Training resources and materials

Statistician courses & resources

Available courses and Materials

There are currently no training courses available.

Statistical Monitoring Programs for R

Below are the programs used in Application of methods for central statistical monitoring in clinical trials. Clinical trials, Volume 10 Issue 5 October 2013 pp. 769 - 792.

The links give the R code and a word document with instructions on how to run the program and interpret the output.

Program name	Instructions	R Code
Dates: Order Checking
Dates: Weekends and National Holidays
Outliers
Digit Preference: Integers
Digit preference: Benford’s law and comparison with all other sites
Comparison of Means: Chernoff Faces and Star Plots
Inliers
Checking adverse event rates
Correlation checks
Variance checks
Categorical variables

Web applications

This online application allows the user to design randomised phase 2 trials (with either 2 or 3 arms) using a margin of practical equivalence. This work was done by Dr. Hakim-Moulay Dehbi and will be published in a scientific journal in the near future.

Click here

Training resources and materials