(2025) Introduction to R: Halifax, NS

R is one of the most important scripting languages for both experimental and computational biologists. It is well-designed, efficient, widely adopted and has a very large base of contributors who add new functionality for all modern aspects of data analysis and visualization. Moreover, it is free and open source. However, R’s great power and expressiveness can at first be difficult to approach without guidance, especially for those who are new to programming. This workshop introduces the essential ideas and tools of R. Although this workshop will cover running statistical tests in R, it does not cover statistical concepts.

After the course, participants should be able to:

• Apply basic conventions of data handling, including organization and analysis
• Break down and compose solutions to computing tasks in R
• Identify and implement key R syntax, functions, and packages

Graduates, postgraduates, and PIs who design and execute strategies for data analysis but have little or no familiarity with the R statistical workbench.

You will require your own laptop computer. Minimum requirements: 1024×768 screen resolution, 1.5GHz CPU, 8GB RAM, 10GB free disk space, recent versions of Windows, Mac OS X or Linux (Most computers purchased in the past 3-4 years likely meet these requirements). 

This workshop requires participants to complete pre-workshop tasks and readings.