Introduction to R

this course will be taught in english

The R programming language is written by and for (data-)scientists to be a powerful tool for datascience, statistics and data-visualisation. R is free and open source, which means professionals all over the world are continually updating and adding functionality. With R you can transform and investigate your raw data into actionable insights that drive intelligent decision-making and innovation.

In this beginners course we'll guide you through the basics of importing data, cleaning and restructuring the data, visualizing and summarizing your data, and finally applying statistical models on your data.

At the end of the course you'll not only be able to work with R, but you will also be able to expand your knowledge in your own specific work field.

This course relies heavily on highly interactive (online or hybrid) sessions where we review what you’ve done in the reader. During a review the teacher will share his screen and go through the code asking you by voting and chatting to find the error or complete the code. These reviews are used to rehearse material, show tips and tricks, warn for common mistakes, explain error messages, show how to use the helpfiles and the program (IDE) in general, and overall to motivate you to keep up the pace. Participants report they are highly involved during these sessions and the course is consistently highly evaluated. On average this course is rated with an 8.2 (10% gives a 10!) by students and employees alike.

Goal

This introduction course is for everyone who wants to (re)learn the basics of the programming language R needed for data handling. This is useful for those new to R, or for those who have worked with R but never got the chance to learn the basics themselves.

Content

INTRODUCTION TO R AND RSTUDIO
R ESSENTIALS/BASICS
READING DATA FROM FILES (using readr and openxlsx)
DATA TRANSFORMATIONS (using dplyr and tidyr)
EXPLORATORY DATA ANALYSIS: GRAPHICS (using ggplot2)
EXPLORATORY DATA ANALYSIS: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
STATISTICAL TESTS (how to run the tests, not how to interpret them)
WHAT’S MORE (Other useful packages and more classical Programming)

Prerequisits

None - but a dream of what you’d like to do with R would be nice.

Please note R has a steep learning curve. Expect you’ll need 2-4 hours between sessions to prepare for the next one and plan accordingly. Please be kind to yourself and allow yourself at least 48 hours to complete the course.

Enrollment and course fee

Fill out this form to enroll

Late enrollments are fine, but please also contact the teacher to not risk being overlooked. You can unenroll until 8 days prior to the first session. The participants will be mailed the course material a few days prior to the course. For more info you can mail Theo van Mourik (t.j.van.mourik@rug.nl).

Prices for individuals:

€100 BSc/MSc student at UG, other Dutch University or Hanze Hogeschool
€300 PHD-student at UG or other Dutch University
€650 Employee UG or other Dutch university/UMCG/Hanze Hogeschool
€650 UG Alumni
€1250 Other participants

Prices for groups joining the course:

20 or more PHD’s €200pp (minimum price of €4.000)

10 or more Employees €400 pp (minimum price of €4.000)

20 or more Employees €250 pp (minimum price of €5.000)

5 or more others €1.000 pp (minimum price of €5.000, we’ll also need to send a separate contract for this)

When enrolling a group of participants, you need to report a single financial contact person/kostenplaatsnummer and the mailing addresses of all participants. You can enroll a group with the normal enrollment link.

You can also order a custom course and discuss dates, audience and content. For more information mail Theo van Mourik (t.j.van.mourik rug.nl). This is also possible within the curriculum.

Date, time and location

Below are the dates and times of the next known Introduction to R-course(s). The content of these courses is the same each time.

If these dates don’t suit you and you want to be notified on future courses please contact Theo van Mourik (t.j.van.mourik rug.nl).

March 2024: 12 week evening course

This evening course is a yearly tradition by now; set up specifically for Life-Long-Learners who work all day, but still want to learn R. To accommodate for the late hour this course will be given more light-heartedly. We’ll make it ‘gezellig’. If it helps, during the presentations, some key words can be translated to Dutch and of course participants can ask their questions in Dutch as well if that is easier for them.

All sessions take 2 hours on Tuesday evenings from 19:00 - 21:00 and take 1-2 hours of preparation each.
All presentations will be given via Blackboard collaborate and can be followed online. Even if sessions would be onsite, you can always choose to join online.
All presentations will be recorded and recordings will be available for about 6 months after the course.
You’ll receive a certificate of attendance for attending 9 of 12 sessions or (if you prefer) after completing a final assignment.
Each week we’ll join online on Tuesdays. Sessions 1 and 7 are hybrid. On those sessions you can still join online, but you can also join in the classroom at Zernike in Groningen (Mercator Building; 5415.0031)

Session	Date Time 19:00 - 21:00	Preparation
1	5 March (Hybrid)	Install R and R studio
2	12 March	H1-H2.3: Intro and Basic vectors
3	19 March	H2.8: dataframes, factors and formulas
4	26 March	H2–H3.1: Read and write CSV
5	2 April	H3: (optional time to catch up)
6	9 April	H4.4: Dplyr, filter, select, summarise
7	16 April (Hybrid)	H4: Tidyr, join and restructure tables
8	23 April	H5.4: Basic graph
	No session on 30 April	May holiday
9	7 May	H5: Graph with extra's
10	14 May	H6: Descriptives
11	21 May	H7: Statistical tests
12	28 May	H8: Extra's and programming

May 2024 – 3 week course

All sessions take 4 hours and take 3-4 hours of preparation each. All presentations will be given via the Kaltura classroom (no account needed) and can be followed online. Even if sessions would be onsite, you can always choose to join online. All presentations will be recorded and recordings will be available for about 6 months after the course. You’ll receive a certificate of attendance for attending 5 of 6 sessions or (if you prefer) after completing a final assignment.

Session	Date	Your Preparation
1	Tue May 14^th 9:00-13:00	Install R and R studio or start in UWP/VRW
2	Thu May 16^th 9:00-13:00	H 1 – 2.7 Intro and Basics
3	Tue May 21^th 9:00-13:00	H2.8 – H 3 Basics and import Data
4	Thu May 23^th 9:00-13:00	H 4 Working with tables
5	Tue May 28^th 9:00-13:00	H5 Graphs
6	Thu May 30^th 9:00-13:00	H 6 – 8 Descriptives, tests, programming

If you want to be notified on future courses in R (or Python) please mail the teacher Theo van Mourik (t.j.van.mourik rug.nl).

More information

For more information on this or similar courses, please mail the teacher, Theo van Mourik t.j.van.mourik@rug.nl

Fill out this form to enroll

Last modified:

14 February 2024 2.28 p.m.

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