A Slower Introduction to R
Overview
Description
This is a 7-session introduction to R, designed to accommodate learners without any prior experience with R or programming.
Objectives
After attending this workshop series, participants should be able to:
- establish a workflow for using R and saving R work
- explain basic R object types
- implement R functions for basic data analysis, and generalize recurring syntax patterns to use similar but unfamiliar functions
- construct new
ggplot2data visualizations by defining aesthetics and geometries - combine R features or functions to subset data or define new variables
Instructor
The instructor has more than 10 years of experience teaching R at UCSF in various settings, including:
- as an instructor for Biostat 213
- as a co-instructor for GHS 207
Since 2024, he has been a member of UCSF Library’s Data Science and Open Scholarship team (DSOS). Other workshops offered by DSOS are listed here.
Live sessions
Live online sessions of this workshop series occur every Fall quarter. Registration links for Fall 2026 are provided below, within each section.
Orientation
- instructions for installing R and RStudio (opens in a new tab)
- slides (opens in a new tab)
- recording (opens in a new tab)
Session 1: How can I do math?
- live session:
- Friday, October 2, 2026, at 9:30 am
- register in advance here
- slides (opens in a new tab)
- exercise guide (right-click link to save)
- homework
Session 2: How can I import data?
- live session:
- Friday, October 9, 2026, at 9:30 am
- register in advance here
- slides (opens in a new tab)
- NHANES data (right-click link to save)
- exercise guide (right-click link to save)
- homework
- West Nile Virus data (right-click link to save)
Session 3: How can I perform univariate analysis?
- live session:
- Friday, October 16, 2026, at 9:30 am
- register in advance here
- slides (opens in a new tab)
- exercise guide (right-click link to save)
- recording (opens in a new tab)
- homework
Session 4: How can I perform bivariate analysis?
- live session:
- Friday, October 23, 2026, at 9:30 am
- register in advance here
- slides (opens in a new tab)
- exercise guide (right-click link to save)
- recording (opens in a new tab)
- homework
Session 5: How can I make data visualizations with ggplot2?
- live session:
- Friday, October 30, 2026, at 9:30 am
- register in advance here
- slides (opens in a new tab)
- exercise guide (right-click link to save)
- recording (opens in a new tab)
- homework
Session 6: How can I subset data and define missing values?
- live session:
- Friday, November 6, 2026, at 9:30 am
- register in advance here
- slides (opens in a new tab)
- exercise guide (right-click link to save)
- recording (opens in a new tab)
- homework
Session 7: How can I create new categorical variables?
- live session:
- Friday, November 13, 2026, at 9:30 am
- register in advance here
- slides (opens in a new tab)
- exercise guide (right-click link to save)
- recording (opens in a new tab)
- homework
Rights
Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under CCBY 4.0.