GDEV 4290 - Introduction to Data Science with R

Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

Forbidden Overlap: due to an overlap in content, students will receive credit for only one course in the following group: AEM 2850, NTRES 6100, GDEV 4290, GDEV 5290, STSCI 3040, STSCI 5040.
Co-meets with GDEV 5290.

C. Liao.

The goal of this course is to introduce to students the applied aspects of R programming for conducting basic data-driven research. As one of the most popular programming languages, R provides a rich environment for working with data, especially for statistical modeling and graphics. In this course we will cover data import and management, basic functions, plotting tools, loops and functions, basic linear models, and various graphing tools. Course content focuses on design and implementation of R programs to meet routine and specialized data manipulation, management, and analysis objectives. Attention will be given to mastering concepts and tools necessary for implementing reproducible research, with examples in the context of global development, environmental sustainability, and food systems.

Outcome 1: Manage datasets and manipulate variables.

Outcome 2: Apply basic functions for summary statistics and other computation.

Outcome 3: Use various plotting and graphing tools, as well as more advanced packages, for data visualization and analysis.

Outcome 4: Develop basic functions and loops to improve computing efficiency.

Outcome 5: Perform basic statistical analysis.

Outcome 6: Visualize data elegantly.