SIS Seminar Series - Using R for research, part 1: gathering, organizing and describing data

R is a powerful data analysis tool for researchers. It’s a statistical programming language that is supported by a free, open-source editing environment (RStudio) that is dedicated to building an inclusive and diverse R community. Like all tools, R has a learning curve and it can be difficult to know where to start. This seminar is a guided introduction to R and some of the ways that it can be used to support research in information studies.

No previous knowledge of statistics or of programming is assumed. An interest in quantitative research would be helpful.

This workshop will be hands-on using examples of data taken from public sources, so please bring your laptops with you. As well, please install R and RStudio (in that order) before coming to the workshop. The process takes about 20 minutes in all. To install R: https://cran.r-project.org/. For RStudio: https://rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/ (choose the free RStudio desktop version).

Part 1 will introduce some basics on:

• Setting your work environment
• Importing data into R from different sources, particularly CSV files and websites.
• Preparing data for analysis
• Describing your data at a very basic level