Coding and Cookies

Facts: 

1. Researchers are producing more data than ever before.
2. It's literally impossible to analyze all of these data by hand.
3. Research is really repetitive
4. Automating data processing and analysis will streamline your research

The Coding and Cookies series will teach you the basics of how to use R programming and version control using git to make your research more efficient and reproducible. 

Coding & Cookies is offered in collaboration with the Department of Statistics' Graybill Statistics and Data Science Laboratory. After adapting our approach to support online learning in 2020, we will continue to use a flipped classroom format in Fall 2022. To get the most out of these workshops, attendees are encouraged to watch a recorded video and follow along with the exercises presented before attending the live workshops, which will be hybrid sessions offered both online via Zoom and in person in Morgan Library. At the live sessions, we will review key concepts and work through additional examples and questions, with individual help available. Learning materials will continue to be made publicly available on this guide (see links to the left). If sessions are full, interested students are encouraged to review these materials and get in touch with the instructors for follow-up questions. 

Spring 2023 Workshop Schedule:

R basics

Learning how to code involves an investment of time and effort up front, but will save you time and effort in the long run. In the R basics Coding and Cookies session, the basics of using tabular data in RStudio will be discussed. By the end of this session, you will be able to load data into R, calculate summary statistics, and create exploratory graphs using R’s basic graphics package. This session is geared toward beginners, so if you have experience using R, this may not be the class for you.

January 31st, 10:00-11:30am
Registration link: https://colostate.libcal.com/calendar/12856/r-basics-2023-01-31  

February 21st, 10:00-11:30am
Registration link: https://colostate.libcal.com/calendar/12856/r-basics-2023-02-21  

Tidy Data in R

The process of generating data can be messy, and what you can do with your data depends strongly on how it is formatted. This month's coding and cookies will cover the definition of “tidy data”, a standardized way of formatting your data that makes it easier to work with. You will learn how to clean and reformat your data using a collection of R packages called the tidyverse. A basic working knowledge of R and R studio would be helpful for you to get the most out of this session.

March 21st, 10:00-11:30am
Registration link: https://colostate.libcal.com/calendar/12856/tidy-r-2023-03-21  

Data Visualization using ggplot2

So you’re familiar with R, but want to do more with your plots than the base graphics package.  In this month’s Coding and Cookies, the ggplot2 package in R will be discussed. After this session, you will be able to create a variety of plot types, alter their aesthetics, and create custom themes. A working knowledge of R and R studio and dplyr would be helpful for you to get the most out of this session.

April 4th, 10:00-11:30am
Registration link: https://colostate.libcal.com/calendar/12856/data-viz-2023-04-04  

Version Control using Git

We’ve all intuitively used some type of version control in our work such as saving multiple versions of a document. While easy, it can cause file bloat and ultimately become more complicated. Luckily, formal version control systems have been developed to streamline this process. In this month’s Coding and Cookies session, we will be covering version control using git. After this session, you’ll be able to create a git repository, make and add changes to the repository, and use GitHub to remotely store your repository.

April 18th, 10:00-11:30am
Registration link: https://colostate.libcal.com/calendar/12856/version-control-2023-04-18