Cloud-SPAN develops training in Specialised analyses for 'omics with Cloud-based High Performance Computing and is funded by the UKRI innovation scholars award (MR/V038680/1) the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/X006999/1).
This online two-hour workshop is an introduction to R for complete beginners. It teaches you how to find your way round RStudio, use the basic data types and structures in R and how to organise your work with scripts and projects. It also teaches you how to import data, summarise it and create and format a graph. The workshop assumes no prior experience of coding.
R is a free and open source language especially well-suited to data analysis and visualisation and has a relatively inclusive and newbie-friendly community. R caters to users who do not see themselves as programmers, but then allows them to slide gradually into programming.
After this workshop the successful learner will be able to:
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find your way around RStudio
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use the basic data types and structures in R
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organise your work with scripts and projects
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import data, summarise it and create and format a graph
You should install the following before the workshop
- R version 4.0 or higher
- RStudio (2023)
- these packages:
tidyverse
Download the pre-compiled binary for your OS from https://cloud.r-project.org/ and install. More specifically:
For Windows
Click "Download R for Windows", then "base", then "Download R 4.x.x for Windows". This will download an .exe file; once downloaded, open to start the installation. You can accept all the defaults.
For Mac
Click "Download R for (Mac) OS X", then "R-4.x.x.pkg" to download the installer. Run the installer to complete installation. You can accept all the defaults.
For Linux
Click "Download R for Linux". Instructions on installing are given for Debian, Redhat, Suse and Ubuntu distributions. Where there is a choice, install both r-base and r-base-dev.
Download and install the version for your OS from: https://posit.co/download/rstudio-desktop/ You can accept all the defaults.
For Windows with no admin rights
Download the .zip source archive under "Zip/Tarballs". Extract the files to a folder where you have write access. Open the bin folder and find the RStudio program: it is named rstudio-xxxxxxx.exe (where xxxxxx is a version number), but the file extension will typically be hidden, so look for rstudio-xxxxxxx. Double-click the executable or use the shortcut to open.
Once you have installed R and RStudio, start RStudio up and go to the Packages tab in the bottom right pane; click Install and type the name of the package you want to install in the box that appears. Then wait until you get the cursor (>) back in the console window.
If installing R and RStudio is tricky or impossible with your set up (e.g., if you only have a chrome book) then you can use https://posit.cloud/. This is a version of RStudio that runs in your browser. It is free for 15 hours but you will need to make an account. You will still need to install packages.