Introduction

1. Preliminary quantitative data analysis guidelines (3 hours)

Read carefully these Guidelines - paying specific attention to the minimum standards and the way each data analysis case is set up.

2. Setup (3 hours)

R and Rstudio installation

Exercise
Download and install both R and RStudio to your work laptop. (these are two different installations.)

Getting Started with R and Rstudio

3. Programming basics (in R) (1 day)

Variables and data structures

Content: 1. RStudio interface 1. Assigning variables 1. Data types: numerics, strings, factors 1. Data structures: scalar, vector, matrix, data frame, list 1. Subsetting

Exercise
Completing the datacamp course was your exercise. Yay !

Handling data

  1. importing and exporting data: Intro to R environment: Chapter 3.3.
  2. inspecting data: Cheatsheet

Exercise
Follow the expercise in 1.) Use R to load your own dataset, check the dimensions of the table, and save as a csv file under a different name.

5. R packages (1/2 day)

dplyr and magrittR are two commonly used R packages. All of R has packages as building blocks: simple tools that solve one particular problem. Later in this intro you will learn about the packages developed within IMPACT.

Installing and loading packages

Exercise
Install the “ggplot2” package. Inspect it’s vignettes. Look at the help page for ggplot2’s “qplot” function.

6. Troubleshooting (1/2 day)

  1. How to search for a solution
    • Be specific in your vocabulary: include the data type, structure and operation
    • Paste the error message into google Stack Overflow - using r-faq
  2. How to ask for help

8. Prerequisite test

The prerequesite test will rely on the guidelines, as well as chapters 2, 3 and 5. To ensure a smooth training, passing it is required to participate.