Creating self-updating reports from 5 to 5000 datapoints: Using R and R Markdown in a library workflowJacob LevernierUniversity of Pennsylvania Libraries, United States of America R is a free and open-source scripting language with an active development community for performing data analysis and visualization. R Markdown is a conceptual extension of R that allows writing manuscripts *that contain code* (whether written in R, Python, Bash, or several other languages). A single report can, for example, update its figures and text when presented with an updated dataset. As part of a movement toward "literate programming," embedding code in prose text, R Markdown is increasingly used as part of scholarly communication workflows.
With new developments in the R landscape -- specifically, an ecosystem of packages that follow a common conceptual and design philosophies, collectively called the "tidyverse" -- R is an increasingly accessible language to learn. This workshop seeks to be useful for R beginners even as it is focused on those who have basic to intermediate experience with R.
I have taught the use of R for statistical analyses and data management and transformations to professional staff, faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students at a variety of experience levels. This workshop will focus on R fundamentals for 1.5 hours, followed by R Markdown for 1.5 hours. The R Markdown curriculum will include an introduction to Markdown itself, a lightweight markup syntax for writing manuscripts; fundamentals of embedding code in an R Markdown document; and, to conclude, advanced usage examples to inspire further learning.
Learners will be encouraged to bring a laptop with the free, open-source version of RStudio (https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/#download) installed. Examples will be demonstrated live, so a laptop is not required, however. This workshop will have an interactive lecture format, rather than, for example, a breakout-groups format.
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This workshop is part of Learn@DLF (our brand new pre-conference workshop day). Learn more and register for this session:
https://forum2018.diglib.org/learnatdlf/
