Introduction to R

For complete beginners

Dates: June 3-4

Duration: Four Hours (split over two days)

Language: English

Schedule:

Daily Sessions: 13:00 - 1500 hrs

Course Overview:

This intensive 4-hour course provides a rapid and highly hands-on introduction to the R programming language, focusing on the core concepts and skills needed to start working with data immediately. Participants will learn the essentials of R syntax, fundamental data structures, and key packages for basic data manipulation and visualisation through practical exercises. While example datasets will be provided, participants are encouraged to bring their own small datasets if they wish, to explore R’s capabilities with data relevant to their own work. This course is designed for beginners with no prior programming experience.

Instructor: Axel Arango

Course Topics:

June 3

Hour 1: Introduction to R and Setup

Introduction to R and its applications.

  • Installing R and RStudio.

  • Navigating the RStudio interface.

  • Basic R syntax: variables, operators, and data types (numeric, character, logical).

  • Vectors: creating and manipulating vectors.

Hour 2: Data Frames

  • Data frames: creating, accessing, and summarising data frames.

  • Importing data from CSV files.

  • Basic data manipulation: filtering and selecting data.

June 4

Hour 1: Data Manipulation with dplyr

  • Introduction to the dplyr package.

  • Key dplyr functions: filter(), select(), mutate().

  • Piping operations (%>%).

  • Grouping and summarizing data with group_by() and summarize().

Hour 2: Data Visualisation with ggplot2

  • Introduction to the ggplot2 package.

  • Creating plots with ggplot(): aesthetics and geoms.

  • Basic geoms: geom_point(), geom_bar(), geom_histogram().

  • Customising plots: titles, labels, and colours.

Notes

Depending on the number of participants, subjects could be changed or expanded on demand.

This course requires a computer that can install both R and Rstudio.

Enrollment:

If you plan to attend parts or the whole course, please provide details and confirm by June 2, 2025, by emailing Dr. Axel Arango Garcia - axel.arango-garcia [at] uni-wuerzburg [dot] de