Data Lab at Tufts: A Gentle Introduction to R

This workshop is designed to get you started with the statistical programming language R. We will provide an overview of the R language and the RStudio interface and compare them to other commonly used statistical programs and programming languages. Then we will walk through an R script and cover the following:

• Variables and datatypes
• Working with vectors (arrays) and lists
• Commands for descriptive statistics
• R packages and the tidyverse
• Reading data from a file
• Working with data frames
• Basic data wrangling (cleaning)
• Creating and tweaking visualizations

Absolutely no previous statistical or programming experience is required or assumed. This workshop is most suitable for those without prior experience with R and RStudio. Attendees will get an overview of the R ecosystem, gain familiarity with various R commands, and leave with resources to start writing their own R scripts.

Participation is possible in person at the Medford Data Lab (Tisch Library room 203) and online via Zoom.

The workshop does not require the installation of any software. The necessary software will be made available via an online cloud-computing interface and installed on all lab computers. Those interested in installing the software on their personal machine are welcome to follow these instructions: go.tufts.edu/installingR