Workshop: An Introduction to R
Presented by
Dr Adrian Barnett (QUT) and Peter Baker (UQ)
Tuesday 8 June 2010
School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Herston

- A workshop for statisticians, epidemiologists, public health researchers, PhD and masters students -


About R

R is a powerful statistics package that is available for free (web page: http://www.r-project.org/). It is becoming one of the most commonly used packages amongst statisticians worldwide, and is also being used by non-specialists (researchers, epidemiologists and students). It has tools to run any standard statistical analysis, and new tools on the latest statistical methods are added to its repository every day. Over 2300 of these bespoke tools are now available. These include:

∙ the “rpart” package for classification and regression trees

∙ the “mgcv” package for regression splines

∙ the “e1071” package for support vector machines

R also has an excellent graphics ability and is able to create figures in journal-ready formats. Its one downfall is that it uses a command line, and hence getting started in R involves a significant amount of initial effort for those with limited programming ability. After this initial hurdle the rewards from using R become obvious, and it is likely to become the dominant statistical package in academia within the next decade.

Topics Covered

This course will cover the basics of R and is suitable for someone who has never used it before. We will cover:

∙ Reading data into R
∙ Manipulating data into R
∙ Saving and loading data
∙ Accessing R’s help files
∙ Running a linear regression analysis
∙ Using R’s libraries
∙ Creating a journal-ready plot
Introduction to R Commander

Particpants are required to bring their own laptops and install
R and R Commander prior to attending the workshop. Installation
instructions will be supplied.

Course Location:

Room 434, Level 4, Public Health Building (887), University of Queensland, corner of Herston Rd and Wyndham St, HERSTON

Location maps for the Public Health Building 887, UQ are here: http://sph.uq.edu.au/contact and here: http://www.pf.uq.edu.au/maps/Herston.pdf

Parking and Public Transport:

Limited ‘Park and Display’ parking is available on the avenue in front of the Mayne Medical Building (881) off Herston Road for those who are very early. More information can be found at http://www.health.qld.gov.au/rch/families/parking.asp
An alternative is to take a bus (numbers 66, 333, 330, 340 and others) from ‘Roma St Busway Station’ or ‘King George Square’ to ‘Royal Children’s Hospital’ – see www.translink.com.au

Cost for the 1-Day Course

SSAI Members: $225.00
Non-Members: $450.00
SSAI Student-Members: $200.00
Student Non-Members: $225.00

For non-members, the workshop fee includes a complimentary one-year membership with the SSAI.

Cancellation Policy
Cancellations received prior to 1 June 2010 will be refunded in full. After this date, no part of the registration fee will be refunded. However, registrations are transferable within the same organisation. Please advise any changes to eo@statsoc.org.au.