Overview

An increase in the complexity and scale of biological data means biologists are increasingly required to develop the data skills needed to design reproducible workflows for the simulation, collection, organisation, processing, analysis and presentation of data. Developing such data skills requires at least some coding, also known as scripting. This makes your work (everything you do with your raw data) explicitly described, totally transparent and completely reproducible. However, learning to code can be a daunting prospect for many biologists. That's where an Introduction to reproducible analyses in R comes in.

R is a free and open source language especially well-suited to data analysis and visualisation and has a relatively inclusive and newbie-friendly community. R caters to users who do not see themselves as programmers, but then allows them to slide gradually into programming.

Who is the course for?

This two day course is an introduction to reproducible analyses in R is aimed at researchers at all stages of their careers interested in experimenting with R to make their analyses and figures more reproducible.

Prerequisites

No previous R or coding experience will be assumed. Participants will work on their own laptops. It would be ideal have installed R and RStudio already. This is straightforward but there will be a chance to get help with it during registration.

Learning outcomes

After this workshop the successful learner will be able to:

Understand what is working directory, absolute and relative paths and be able to apply these concepts to data import
Import data from external sources of different format (.csv or Excel; w/wo heading)
Download and install packages and make additional packages available in an R session
Summarise numerical and categorical data in a single group or in multiple groups
Create and plot data using the base package and additional packages such as lattice and ggplot2
Handle date and time variables effectively
Carry out specific data manipulation tasks using dplyr, tidyr and the umbrella-package: tidyverse
Use markdown to produce reproducible analyses, figures and reports
Develop highly organised analyses including well-commented scripts that can be understood by future you and others

Course tutors

Dr Jenny Wilshaw is a Senior Data Scientist at the Royal Veterinary College. Having begun her career as a veterinary surgeon, she now uses her skills as a data scientist to ask questions with clinical relevance, developing insights and solutions that can be applied in veterinary practice.

Dr Collette Taylor is a researcher at the Royal Veterinary College, currently finishing a PhD in veterinary epidemiology and immunology. Her research so far has largely focussed on disease epidemiology and working with electronic health records. As her background is veterinary medicine she is interested in making research outputs useful for practitioners.

Certification and Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

A certificate of attendance will be provided after the event.
We evaluate all of our training events, to make sure that we maintain a high quality of training.

This event has been approved by the Royal Society of Biology for purposes of CPD and can be counted as 12 CPD points.

Professional Registers

This course supports registers competencies and has been identified as supporting competency development for: Registered Scientist (RSci).
Competency area:

Application of knowledge and understanding

Fees

Members - £120 + VAT

Non-members - £240 + VAT

Get in touch with training@rsb.org.uk to access these rates:

Members of Member Organisations, SCAS members - £180 +VAT
Non-members who have completed a membership application and made payment - £120 + VAT

Contact

For further information about the course please contact Emily Lunn, training and registers officer, at training@rsb.org.uk or on 020 3925 3447.

Refunds

Unfortunately, the Royal Society of Biology is unable to offer refunds on training courses that have been attended. We do, of course, welcome and encourage any feedback from a course and will continue to improve the service we offer.

Terms and Conditions

By booking to attend this event, you are confirming you have agreed to the RSB's Terms and Conditions which can be found here.

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Introduction to Reproducible Analyses in R, May 2024

* This course contributes to the Royal Society of Biology's Industry Skills Certificate