INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE
In this course we will learn about some basic statistical calculations using R programming language. This course is intended for non-statistical students/researchers. At the end of the course you will be able to carry out some basic mathematical and statistical calculations for your assignments, project works etc.
WHAT IS R ?
R is a programming language and software environment for statistical analysis, graphics representation and reporting. R was created by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and is currently developed by the R Development Core Team. R is freely available under the GNU General Public License, and pre-compiled binary versions are provided for various operating systems like Linux, Windows and Mac. This programming language was named R, based on the first letter of first name of the two R authors (Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka), and partly a play on the name of the Bell Labs Language S.
R is a free-to-use and open-sourced programming language that is widely used for statistical as well as various Socio-Economical studies.
In this course we will be using two different applications,
- R and
- R Studio
Setting Up R
R can be downloaded from the following link:
https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/
“RStudio is a set of integrated tools designed to help you be more productive with R. It includes a console, syntax-highlighting editor that supports direct code execution, and a variety of robust tools for plotting, viewing history, debugging and managing your workspace.”
R Studio can be downloaded from the following link:
https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/
Note: If you are using a 32bit Operating system then the latest R Studio 1.2.xxx will not support in your machine. You can download older version 1.1.xxx from HERE
Though we will use R studio for our calculations, but R is essential for proper functioning of R studio.
R Studio by default open 4 different windows.
- Script
- Console
- Plots
- History
The Script window can be considered as a notepad where we can write our codes which can be edited according to requirement. Another advantage of writing our code in script is that we can save our script as a text file with .R extension.
The Console window is where the actual programming is executed and the outcomes are shown.
We can type Ctrl + Enter to run a particular code from the script window without typing it in the console window.