Introduction to R for University Administrators
​(online course)

Overview
The statistical package R (www.r-project.org) is a freely available and flexible software environment for statistical computing and graphics. R is part of an international collaboration and has become very popular; it is used for data analysis in many application areas including education and is widely used in academia. In particular it has the facilities to perform advanced statistical modelling methods, and is equally well suited to more elementary statistics and graphics.  
The course begins with a general overview of the concepts involved in using R, such as object orientation. It then moves onto importing data from other applications such as Excel, considers common data manipulation techniques and finishes with an introduction to graphics and summary statistics for numerical data.
The course will use the R Gui application on a Windows operating system. Note the software is not based on using point-and-click mode, but a written command syntax.

Delivery Mode
All training is online and will be delivered live between 09:00 and 17:30 (GMT).  The delivery platform is Zoom, which may be freely accessed.  Questions may be asked using Zoom's chat box.  Note our online courses are delivered by a team of two presenters, meaning at least one presenter is always available to provide additional support.  During presentations the team member who is not speaking can take questions in addition to the presenter.  We also use Zoom meetings rather than webinars to encourage further interaction during an online course.​

Who Should Attend?
Administrators in educational establishments working in Policy, Planning and Strategy units; Data and Insight units; Business Intelligence units; those involved in extracting actionable insights from student records and in reporting to policy makers or committees. Anyone in these positions wanting an introduction to R will benefit greatly from this course.
Although the course is aimed at HE professional, this introduction to R is more widely applicable.
No previous experience of the R software is required.

How You Will Benefit
You will be able to describe the essential concepts related to using R; use R to import and manipulate data and for basic statistical analysis including graphics.  You will also be able to:
  • Install CRAN packages for specific analyses
  • Write a script to (a) efficiently reproduce output and (b) have an auditable record of your analysis
  • Make effective use of the many resources which are freely available to learn about the R software for your particular areas of interest. 

 What Do We Cover?
  • Introductory concepts of R and the R environment: windows, objects, data frames, working directory, attributes of an object in particular class, functions, scripts, workspaces and CRAN packages; help system
  • Importing data from other applications: CSV, Excel and Access into a data frame
  • Data manipulation: using R as a calculator, recoding variables, sorting and subsetting; missing values; changing the class of an object; factors and their labelling
  • Exploratory stage: statistical graphics, graphics window and history; summary statistics for numerical data
  • Sources of information about R.

Software
Practical work will be done in RGui.
Note:
  • For practical work, participants must download and install the RGui application and a number of CRAN packages prior to the start of the course
  • Practical work is based on the Windows operating system.

Extra Information
Related Courses: This is part of a series of short courses for HE professionals working in administrative, planning and support roles: 
Course Dates
26 March 2025
​​

Venue: Online
Duration: 1 day
Price: £270

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(terms and conditions apply)

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