Overview
Introduction to R and Biostatistics
The aim of this 4‐day introductory workshop is to guide you through the basics of using R via RStudio for analysis of environmental and biological data. It is ideal for people new to R or who have limited experience. This work‐ shop is not comprehensive, but is necessarily selective.
The workshop is laid out so it begins simply and slowly to impart the basics of using R. It then gathers pace, so that by the end we are doing intermediate level analyses. Day 1 is concerned with becoming familiar with getting data into R, doing some simple descriptive statistics, data manipulation and visualisation. Day 2 takes a more in depth look at manipulating and visualising data. Day 3 focuses on creating maps. Day 4 deals with the fundamentals of reproducible research. The 3‐week self study/practice opportunity allows one to utilise all of the skills learned throughout the week by creating a final project. The workshop is case‐study driven, using data and examples primarily from our background in the marine sciences and real life situations. There is homework and in class assignments.
Don’t worry if you feel overwhelmed and do not follow everything at any time during the Workshop; that is totally natural with learning a new and powerful program. Remember that you have the notes and material to go through the exercises later at your own pace; we will also be walking the room during sessions and breaks so that we can answer questions one‐on‐one. We hope that this Workshop gives you the confidence to start incorporating R into your daily workflow, and if you are already a user, we hope that it will expose you to some new ways of doing things.
Finally, bear in mind that we are self‐taught when it comes to R. Our methods will work, but you will learn as you gain more experience with programming that there are many ways to get the right answer or to accomplish the same task.