Short Course: Introduction to R, 4 May 2026

Course Overview

R is widely used and extremely powerful statistical software. This course assumes that you have never used R before. You will learn how to obtain and install R, which is open-source software, and RStudio, which is a versatile, user-friendly interface for using R. It is very useful to do this course before our introductory statistics course, Introductory Statistics for Researchers. This course will cover some basic features of R and lay the groundwork for you to improve your R skills independently. The course is self-paced and focused on developing practical skills.

Course outline

This course will cover topics including:

• Basics of interacting with R – calculations, saving variables so you can reuse them, data types and structures, organising R code in scripts

• Tidyverse – a basic introduction to tidy R code

• Data – reading in and organising data (from spreadsheets) with dplyr

• Plotting – make beautiful figures with ggplot

Course Requirements: You will need a computer with administrator access (to install R and RStudio software before attending the course).

Presenter and Expertise: Eve Slavich, Statistical Consultant, UNSW Stats Central

Date: 4 May 2026
Time: 9.30am to 4.30pm
Deliver Mode: In-Person ONLY
Location: AGSM
This course is not hybrid and will not be recorded. 
You will receive a certificate of completion for the course.

Note: If you have a funding support and would like to pay by "Internal Funding Payment", please contact usstats.central@unsw.edu.au. Thank you!

FAQs

How can I contact the organiser with any questions?

Please send us an email at: stats.central@unsw.edu.au