Introduction to R
Instructors: Arndt Leininger
Abstract
R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics that has gained widespread acceptance in the worldwide research community. This is due to several reasons: It is an open-source solution and a comprehensive statistical software with state-of-the-art graphic capabilities and enormous flexibility. The workshop’s objective will be to teach the basic knowledge needed to use R independently, thus helping you to initiate your own process of learning the specific tools needed for your research.
The workshop takes a modern approach to learning R by emphasising participants’ prior exposure to data analysis and statistical software. Participants will start working with data sets right away rather than creating artificial vectors and matrices. Furthermore, the course eschews teaching R’s base graphing facilities in favor of ggplot2 - a more intuitive solution for plotting, which produces beautiful results with little effort. The course will also introduce the “tidyverse”, “tidy data” principles and “piping”, an advanced feature of the language which however makes coding more intuitive.
The workshop mixes structured lectures with practical exercises. In terms of software, we will use RStudio Cloud, which runs in your browser. This means that you do not need to install any software but you can of course use the desktop client of RStudio on the Hertie PCs or your private laptop if you like.
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