R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis

Jan 28, Feb 4, and Feb 11, 2019

12:30 - 4:30 pm

Instructors: Sue McClatchy, Selcan Aydin

Helpers: Dan Gatti

General Information

Software Carpentry aims to help researchers get their work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic research computing skills. This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

For more information on what we teach and why, please see our paper "Best Practices for Scientific Computing".

Who: The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers from the Jackson Laboratory and neighboring institutions. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Where: Breezeway Bioinformatics Training Room, Bldg 1, Unit 5, Room 1540, 600 Main Street, Bar Harbor, Maine. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

When: Jan 28, Feb 4, and Feb 11, 2019. Add to your Google Calendar.

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

Accessibility: We are committed to making this workshop accessible to everybody. The workshop organizers have checked that:

Materials will be provided in advance of the workshop and large-print handouts are available if needed by notifying the organizers in advance. If we can help making learning easier for you (e.g. sign-language interpreters, lactation facilities) please get in touch (using contact details below) and we will attempt to provide them.

Contact: Please email susan.mcclatchy@jax.org for more information.



Schedule

Monday, January 28

12:30 Workshop overview and introductions
12:45 Introduction to RStudio
13:45 Project Management with RStudio
13:45 Seeking Help
14:30 Coffee
14:45 Data Structures
15:45 Exploring Data Frames
16:25 Wrap-up
16:30 END

Monday, February 4

12:30 Subsetting Data
13:30 Control Flow
14:30 Coffee
16:25 Wrap-up
16:30 END

We will use this collaborative document for chatting, taking notes, and sharing URLs and bits of code.


Syllabus

Programming in R

  • Working with vectors and data frames
  • Reading and plotting data
  • Creating and using functions
  • Loops and conditionals
  • Reference...

Setup

To participate in a Software Carpentry workshop, you will need access to the software described below. In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.

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.

R

R is a programming language that is especially powerful for data exploration, visualization, and statistical analysis. To interact with R, we use RStudio.

Windows

Video Tutorial

Install R by downloading and running this .exe file from CRAN. Also, please install the RStudio IDE. Note that if you have separate user and admin accounts, you should run the installers as administrator (right-click on .exe file and select "Run as administrator" instead of double-clicking). Otherwise problems may occur later, for example when installing R packages.

macOS

Video Tutorial

Install R by downloading and running this .pkg file from CRAN. Also, please install the RStudio IDE.

Linux

You can download the binary files for your distribution from CRAN. Or you can use your package manager (e.g. for Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install r-base and for Fedora run sudo dnf install R). Also, please install the RStudio IDE.