R self-study course (2 credits)

An introductory course to R is to be launched in early 2014.

This self-study course implemented in moodle2 is intended to give students an overview of the basic features of the statistical programming language R. No prior courses in programming or statistics are required, although are undoubtedly useful.

Covered topics:

• Basic manipulation of different data types in R, using R as an calculator
• Loading data from different sources such as excel, .csv or .txt -files
• Simple tools for descriptive statistics such as plots and summaries
• Basic programming in R: functions, loops and logical expressions
• Extending R: installing and using packages
• Where to seek help, when in need

What is not covered:

• Conducting and reporting statistical analyses  – statistical methods are covered in their own designated courses
• The design of R, R as a programming language. This course does not delve very deeply into the structure of R, efficient coding philosophy, debugging etc. References to more detailed source material will be provided for those interested.