Intro to R Workshop Series

R is a powerful open-source statistics platform and programming language widely used in many disciplines. The R community has produced thousands of packages (add-ons) that expand its capabilities and have made it the data analysis tool of choice in many fields including the biological sciences, economics, social sciences, statistics, etc.

R's command line interface however can make for a steep learning curve that makes R a little intimidating for beginners. This three-part workshop series is designed to help newcomers get up to speed using R, and refresh skills for people who skills might be a little rusty.

Outline

Intro to R Part 1 - Getting Started

• getting around RStudio
• R as a fancy calculator
• syntax rules
• saving results to variables
• calling functions
• getting help
• working in scripts
• data types
• descriptive stats
• scatter plots, histograms, and line plots

Intro to R Part 2 - Packages, Piping, and Importing Data

• using packages
• piping syntax
• managing files and folders
• importing CSV files
• data frames
• working with dates & factors
• basic plotting with ggplot

Intro to R Part 3 - Data Wrangling

• importing tips and tricks
• data wrangling
• formula syntax
• plotting with ggplot

Participants with little or no experience with R should plan to take all 3 workshops. People with some experience are welcome to just take workshop 2 or 3, but will be expected to know the basics (e.g., working with RStudio, writing R commands in scripts, basic syntax, installing packages, etc.). Slides, exercises, and recordings will be posted as soon as possible.

Audience: 

• UC Cooperative Extension
• UC students & faculty
• AIFS affiliates (including Davis, Berkeley, Cornell, U. Illinois, & USDA)

When & Where: 

Part I. Tuesday October 11, 2022. 3:30 - 5:00p

Part II. Wednesday October 12, 2022. 3:30 - 5:00p

Part III. Friday October 14, 2022. 10:30a - 12:00p

This is a virtual workshop. You will receive a Zoom link via email prior to the training day.

Cost: This is a free workshop.

Requirements: 

No experience necessary.

This is a hands-on experience so all participants are expected to have R and RStudio installed before the workshop begins. Both programs are free and available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. You may also complete the exercises in RStudio Cloud (i.e., in a browser). Additional info will be provided the week before the workshop. A drop-in help session will also be held the day before the first workshop for setup issues.

Parts of the workshop will require following along as the instructor types code to solve a problem. It is therefore strongly recommended that you join the workshop on a computer with two monitors, so you can view the instructor's screen on one monitor, and work in RStudio in the other. Alternately you could use two computers, or one big monitor large enough for multiple windows. Participants who only have a small laptop with no external monitor may find it challenging to complete the hands-on exercises, and may just want to watch.

Registration:

Registration is now closed

This course content is the result of a collaborative effort between UC ANR IGIS Statewide Program, the USDA-NIFA/NSF AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems (AIFS), and the UC Berkeley Geospatial Innovation Facility (GIF).

For information regarding other upcoming IGIS workshops, please see IGIS training or contact Sean Hogan at sdhogan@ucanr.edu