R for Bioinformatic Analyses

Hannah Tavalire and Bill Cresko - University of Oregon

January 2019 - Cesky Krumlov

Lecture 1 - Using R for Biostatistical Analyses

But first a beautiful chair

Why use R?

  • R is a statistical programming language (derived from S)
  • Superb data management & graphics capabilities
  • You can write your own functions
  • Powerful and flexible
  • Runs on all computer platforms
  • Well established system of packages and documentation
  • Active development and dedicated community
  • Can use a nice GUI front end such as Rstudio
  • Reproducibility
    • keep your scripts to see exactly what was done
    • distribute these with your data
    • embed your R analyses in polished RMarkdown files
  • FREE