Introduction to Programming: R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis
QCIF
Online
October 14-17, 2024
9:00 am - 12:30 pm each day
Instructors:
Erin Graham, Joanna Salerno
Helpers:
David Green, Emilia Decker, Ade Adeyinka
Some adblockers block the registration window. If you do not see the
registration box below, please check your adblocker settings.
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.
Who:
The course is aimed at graduate students and other researchers.
You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools
that will be presented at the workshop.
Where: This training will take place online.
The instructors will provide you with the information you will need to connect to this meeting.
Requirements:
Participants must have access to a computer with a
Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on.
They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).
Accessibility:
We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. Please
notify the instructors in advance of the workshop if you require any accommodations or if there is
anything we can do to make this workshop more accessible to you.
Roles:
To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what),
refer to our Workshop FAQ.
Code of Conduct
Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.
Surveys
Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.
To participate in a
Software Carpentry
workshop,
you will need access to software as described below.
In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.
If you haven't used Zoom before, go to the
official website
to download and install the Zoom client for your computer.
Set up your workspace
Like other Carpentries workshops,
you will be learning by "coding along" with the Instructors.
To do this, you will need to have both the window for the tool
you will be learning about (a terminal, RStudio, your web browser, etc..)
and the window for the Zoom video conference client open.
In order to see both at once,
we recommend using one of the following set up options:
Two monitors: If you have two monitors,
plan to have the tool you are learning up on one monitor and
the video conferencing software on the other.
Two devices: If you don't have two monitors,
do you have another device (tablet, smartphone) with a medium to large
sized screen? If so, try using the smaller device as your video
conference connection and your larger device (laptop or desktop)
to follow along with the tool you will be learning about.
Divide your screen: If you only have one device
and one screen, practice having two windows
(the video conference program and one of the tools you will be using
at the workshop) open together.
How can you best fit both on your screen?
Will it work better for you to toggle between them
using a keyboard shortcut?
Try it out in advance to decide what will work best for you.
This blog post includes detailed information on how to set up your screen to follow along during the workshop.
R
R is a programming language
that is especially powerful for data exploration, visualization, and
statistical analysis. To interact with R, we use
RStudio.
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.
Instructions for R installation on various Linux platforms (debian,
fedora, redhat, and ubuntu) can be found at
<https://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/>. These will instruct you to
use your package manager (e.g. for Fedora run
sudo dnf install R and for Debian/Ubuntu, add a ppa
repository and then run sudo apt-get install r-base).
Also, please install the
RStudio IDE.