ISSR Summer Methodology Workshops | Introduction to R: Data Management

In this one day (6 hours, with a 1 hour break) workshop, participants will be introduced to R as a data management tool. This course will teach the Tidyverse, a highly popular set of R packages designed to work together to provide a consistent set of tools for data management and data manipulation. No previous experience with R is required; this workshop is appropriate for both those being introduced to R and those already familiar and who want to be more efficient and effective when working with their data.

The goal of this workshop is to equip participants with the principles of data management and the R programming skills to do so in their research.Sample data and worksheets will be provided. We will mix theory and practice, alternating between learning best practices for working with data and programming in R on provided datasets. By the end of the workshop, participants should be able to perform basic data management and data manipulation in R. If participants have specific questions about using R for their own research projects following the workshop, they are encouraged to make appointments for individual consultations.

 The following topics will be covered in the workshop:

• Introduction to R programming and its use as a data management tool.
• Importing data from common formats, like CSV, Excel, and STATA files.
• Tidying and reshaping data to be easier to work with
• Modifying existing data to add, remove, update, and clean data
• Merge and separate datasets

Instructor: Alex Karl

Alexander Karl is a PhD student in the Sociology Department at UMass Amherst and holds a certificate in Computational Data Science from the Manning College of Information & Computer Science. He has previously held positions in industry in software engineering and data science roles. Alex specializes in computational social science methods. His research interests include social networks, text-as-data, and internet culture.

Questions? For more information about this or any of the ISSR Summer Methodology Workshops, please contact ISSR Director of Research Methods Programs, Jessica Pearlman (jpearlman@issr.umass.edu).

REGISTRATION INFORMATION | 6-HOUR WORKSHOP

Important: If you are registering for more than one workshop, please verify that all workshops are in your cart with the correct institutional and career status selected, for accurate pricing.

Five College Students and Faculty

• Five College Undergraduate and Graduate Students and Postdocs:  $75/person
• Five College Faculty and Staff:  $135/person

Non-Five College Students and Faculty

• Non-Five College Undergraduate and Graduate Students and Postdocs:  $150/person
• Non-Five College Faculty, Staff and Other Professional:  $210/person

Registration note: The Five Colleges include: UMass Amherst, Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College. Faculty, students and staff from University of Massachusetts Boston, Dartmouth and Lowell campuses and UMass Chan Medical School pay the five college rates. Registration closes for each workshop 2 full business days prior to the start date. If paying with departmental funds, contact Sue Falcetti (sfalcetti@umass.edu).

Cancellation note: In cases where enrollment is 5 or less, we reserve the right to cancel the workshop.  In cases where the registrant cancels prior to the workshop, a full refund will be given with two weeks notice, and 50% refund will be given with one week notice.  We will not be able to refund in cases where registrant does not notify us of cancellation at least one week prior to the beginning date of the workshop.