Getting Started
Content for Monday, August 21, 2023
Today we’ll focus on getting oriented to the course and the tools we’ll be using throughout the semester. Readings are designed to help understand some of the ‘rules’ of R syntax and develop an understanding for manipulating different types of data in R. I’ve added a few on open science and reproducibility because I think they help make the case for learning to build code-based workflows.
Readings
The syllabus, content, examples, and assignments pages for this class
Chapter 1 - 6 in Venables et al., An Introduction to R (Venables et al. 2009) - for a quick refresher on data types in R (it’s only 30 pages)
Chapters 1-2 in Douglas et al., An Introduction to R - provides another intro to R that’s been updated and is an open-source book.
Happy Git and GitHub for the useR - all you really need to know to be a proficient user of git for version control and reproducible workflows.
Open science, reproducibility, and transparency in ecology by Powers and Hampton - discusses the importance of open science for ecologists.
Practical Reproducibility in Geography and Geosciences by Nilst and Pebesma - describes the importance of reproducibility for geospatial analysis.
Objectives
By the end of today you should:
Be able to articulate the organization of the course, the approach to grading, and the requirements for the final project
Be able to access the RStudio Server and Github classroom
Be able to clone the first self-reflection and know the process for submitting assignments
Slides
The slides for today’s lesson are available online as an HTML file. Use the buttons below to open the slides either as an interactive website or as a static PDF (for printing or storing for later). You can also click in the slides below and navigate through them with your left and right arrow keys.