This online course is aimed at beginners as well as people with some experience of R or statistics who would like to take their skills to the next level.
Overview
This is predominantly a self-study course, centred around a website consisting of articles, exercises and computer code that learners work through in their own time. It will teach you the fundamentals of R, and will cover everything needed to process and analyse data and present the results.
The examples in the course are taken from the biological sciences (e.g. medicine and animal biology), though the methods you will learn are widely used in other fields (e.g. business and social sciences).
The curriculum will cover the following:
- Basic usage of R and RStudio
- How to input, clean, and process data using dplyr and other tidyverse packages
- Making diverse types of high-quality graphs with the ggplot2 package
- Fundamentals of statistical hypothesis testing
- The linear model: a flexible statistical test that is suitable for diverse purposes
Participants will also complete Moodle quizzes designed to help participants assess their own knowledge. Help will also be provided via weekly video calls (see Course Dates) and an online forum (see How you'll be taught).
Who is this course for?
Anyone wishing to gain the core skills needed to process, graph, and analyse data in R. This could include professionals and graduate students seeking to improve their skillset, as well as current and prospective university students hoping to improve their skills.
Entry requirements
No previous experience of coding or statistics is required, though it would be helpful to be confident using a computer and have good numerical literacy. We therefore strongly recommend that participants have a high school (e.g. Advanced Higher, A-level, or equivalent) or college/university-level qualification in a relevant subject (e.g. sciences, health or social sciences, mathematics, computing), or comparable professional experience.
Fees
£120
Course dates
The course will run from 3 February 2025. This is a self-study course that can be completed at your own pace, but with optional weekly teaching sessions held online on:
Monday 3 February 12-1pm
Monday 10 February 12-1pm
Monday 17 February 12-1pm
Monday 24 February 12-1pm
How you'll be taught and assessed
The course leader (Associate Professor Luke Holman) is a biologist, internationally recognised for his contributions to evolutionary biology, particularly ‘big data’ projects involving advanced statistics, coding, individual based simulations, and text mining. Luke has used R in his research for over 20 years, and is recognised as a pioneer of reproducible research.
Participants will gain access to high-quality digital teaching materials. Participants will work through these materials in their own time, and at their own convenience. The volume of teaching materials is such that the course could be completed by a dedicated beginner while working or studying full-time, or completed in a few days by someone studying it intensively.
Alongside instructional materials, there will be self-assessment tests to check your understanding and put your newly-acquired skills into practice.
Participants engaging with the self-assessment tests will receive a certificate of completion.
In addition to the weekly optional live teaching sessions, listed above, there is an opportunity to get help as you progress via an online forum.