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USGS recoded online course: "Learn R A Free Software Environment for Statistical Computing and Graphics"

link VIEW LINK: Link

Freely available recordings of the US Geological Surevey (USGS) series of online courses demonstrating how to use R, a powerful free statistics software that produces publication-ready graphics. Recorded topics include:

  • Using the webinar, Installing R, R Commander, and packages
  • Analysis using graphical displays
  • Analysis of Variance
  • Logistic Regression and Generalized Linear Models
  • Scatterplot Smoothers and General Additive Models
  • Analyzing Longitudinal Data
  • Simultaneous Inference and Multiple Comparisons
  • Principle Component Analysis

Decription from the website: "The course is designed for natural resource managers and is open to all who are interested without charge. R (the open-source/free version of S) provides a comprehensive environment for statistical analysis and graphics and is unrivaled in the availability of new, cutting-edge applications. It runs under most operating systems. Audio of the presentations is available either using Voice of IP through your computer speakers and optional microphone or headset or by calling a phone bridge long distance. Live video of the presenter's computer screen is available over the web. You can also share your computer's screen with other participants when asking a question or making a point. An audio and video recording of the presentations and discussion will be available on our FTP site after the presentations. There are no specific prerequisites but some knowledge of statistics would be helpful. A basic knowledge of computers and the internet will be assumed.

R is a very powerful system for statistical computations and graphics, which runs on Windows, UNIX and Mac computers. You can think of it as a combination of a statistics package and a programming language. It can be downloaded for free from http://www.r-project.org/ . The R Wiki provides an online forum http://rwiki.sciviews.org/doku.php and documentation.

ADVANTAGES

  • With the increasing cost of commercial statistical package, a free package is very attractive. However, free does not imply second rate. R is a high quality package that is better than commercial package in many respects.
  • There are over 2,500 contributed packages (extensions) available for R to perform a great variety of statistical and graphical procedures. Twenty eight task views of packages.
  • R includes a powerful programming language for selecting, manipulating and transforming data.
  • R is interactive and supports data analysis, which should be interactive and exploratory.
  • Although SAS is the most common statistical package in general use, R (or S) is the most popular with statistical researchers (Faraway 2005: x).
  • New statistical methods often are available first in R. For example, GRTS analyses are only available in R at this time to my knowledge.
  • R can easily import and export data to and from Microsoft Access and Excel as well as text files."
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