Link Search Menu Expand Document
CMU Libraries Open Data Science Workshops

Introduction to R Part 1

This 2-part introductory workshop aims to teach basic concepts, skills, and tools for working with data in R so that you can get more done in less time, and apply concepts of reproducibility to your research. This is an introduction to R designed for participants with no programming experience. Part 1 of the workshop covers basic information about R syntax and the RStudio interface, including installing packages and working with vectors. Part 2 will cover importing CSV files, working with dataframes, how to deal with factors, how to add/remove rows and columns using the popular dplyr package, and how to calculate summary statistics from a data frame. Taking Part 1 and Part 2 is encouraged, but optional.

Learners should bring a laptop and should already have installed R and RStudio on their computer. Installation and set-up instructions, as well as a detailed curriculum for the workshop can be downloaded here.

After this workshop, you’ll be able to:

  • Describe the different panes in the RStudio environment and how they are used when coding in R.
  • Run lines of R code from a script file to the console.
  • Create and store new objects in R.
  • Find help information for functions.
  • Use functions in R with appropriate syntax and arguments.
  • Define, create and manipulate vectors in R.

Slides

Here are the slides for both part 1 and part 2.

Let’s get started!

Table of contents