Find us on GitHub

Data Analysis, Visualization, and Reproducibility with R Notebooks

Caltech

March 29-30, 2018

9:00 am - 4:30 pm

Instructors: Donna Wrublewski, Gail Clement

Helpers: Stephen Davison

General Information

Data Carpentry workshops are for any researcher who has data they want to analyze, and no prior computational experience is required. This hands-on workshop, inspired by Data Carpentry but not covering all the required topics to be a full Data Carpentry workshop, will teach basic concepts and skills using the RStudio environment for working more effectively with data.

We will cover Introduction to R, Data analysis and visualization in R, Advanced visualization in R and Introduction to R Notebooks and R Markdown. Participants should bring their laptops and plan to participate actively. By the end of the workshop learners should be able to more effectively manage and analyze data and be able to apply the tools and approaches directly to their ongoing research.

Who: The course is designed for graduate students at Caltech; however, other members of the Caltech community are welcome, if space permits. Caltech graduate students will be given priority for registration.

Where: Sherman Fairchild Library 3rd floor Multimedia Conference Room (MCR) . Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating sytem (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) for which they have administrative privileges. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below). They are also required to abide by Data Carpentry's Code of Conduct.

Contact: Please mail dtwrub@caltech.edu for more information.


Registration

This workshop requires a registration deposit of $20, covering both days. Please note that all attendees are expected to attend both days - there will be no single-day registration discount offered. Each registration deposit will be completely refunded upon successful check-in during the workshop. Registration will also be refundable via cancellation before March 26, 2018 by 5 PM PDT.

There are two steps to complete your registration for this workshop:

  1. Register by completing the form at the Caltech Library Event Registration Page.
  2. The $20 deposit for each day must be paid to GSC using this link within 72 hours of registering at the Library page to hold your reservation. Your reservation will auto-cancel if you do not make payment to the Graduate Student Council representative within 72 hours.

Preliminary Schedule

Day 1

Morning Introduction to R
Afternoon Data analysis and visualization in R

Day 2

Morning Advanced visualization in R
Afternoon Introduction to R Notebooks and R Markdown

Syllabus

Introduction to R

  • Basic R syntax
  • The RStudio interface
  • Brief introduction to plotting

Data analysis and visualization in R

  • Basic R syntax
  • The RStudio interface
  • Brief introduction to plotting

Advanced visualization in R

  • How to import files
  • The structure of data frames
  • How to work with factors, rows and columns
  • How to calculate summary statistics from a data frame

Introduction to R Notebooks and R Markdown

  • How to import files
  • The structure of data frames
  • How to work with factors, rows and columns
  • How to calculate summary statistics from a data frame

Setup

To participate in a Data Carpentry workshop, you will need working copies of the described software. Please make sure to install everything (or at least to download the installers) before the start of your workshop. Participants should bring and use their own laptops to insure the proper setup of tools for an efficient workflow once you leave the workshop.

Please follow these Setup Instructions.

We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.