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“I’ve had so many false starts trying to learn R: my initial excitement at learning something new is quickly dashed by the brick wall of coding. I keep telling myself R is not for non-coders like me and off I slope back to Excel! This course is different. To use the words of one of my data heroes, Alberto Cairo, this course doesn’t try to simplify R but it helps clarify the basic skills you need. The step-by-step approach to building skills kept me engaged and learning all the way through. All the while I kept thinking, I know how I can use this in my current job.
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“I just want to say how much I enjoyed R in 3 Months with R for the Rest of Us. It was a really great course. I was very intimidated to learn R. I finished my PhD and we were mostly working with SPSS and I started a new role where it became apparent that I needed to use and learn R pretty quickly. David and Charlie were great in helping me get up to speed and start working in R nearly every day. They make it quite fun and enjoyable to learn how to start exploring this great new, wonderful world of R. I got a lot of individualized attention and so it's a great course. I couldn't recommend it more.
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Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model Reports
Judi’s House/JAG Institute, a nonprofit in Colorado, provides support regarding childhood bereavement. In 2018, they created the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model® (CBEM) to estimate rates of children losing a parent or sibling before adulthood. Annual CBEM reports were produced, but racial and ethnic data breakdowns were lacking until 2021. Partnering with R for the Rest of Us, they generated high-quality, easy-to-understand reports on bereavement disparities by race and ethnicity. These national and state-level reports, created using parameterized reporting and RMarkdown, help advance their vision that no child should be alone in grief.
Immunization Agenda 2030 Reports
The World Health Organization's Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) aims to improve global vaccine access. To better report progress, the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins University partnered with R for the Rest of Us in 2023. They produced 72 user-friendly country-level reports in English and French, using parameterized reporting. These reports highlight individual country progress, use less technical language than previous online scorecards, and are in a printable PDF format for review.
Improving R Training for NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region
NOAA Fisheries West Coast region (NOAA WCR) aims to maintain healthy fish populations along the west coast, with offices in California, Oregon, and Washington. Recently, they have increased their use of R, arranging internal trainings and seeking additional support in 2024 from R for the Rest of Us. They created a 6-week training program focusing on R fundamentals, advanced R topics, and GitHub integration. By the end, NOAA WCR staff efficiently produced technical memoranda and improved their workflows using R and Quarto.
Blog
Blog
Learn to use the most powerful tool for working with data.
Even if you've never coded before.
Create your own custom {ggplot2} theme
April 3, 2025
Creating custom themes in {ggplot2} lets you elevate your data visualizations from standard to standout. Whether you’re aiming for a polished, brand-consistent look for your organization or a unique aesthetic that reflects your personal style, a custom theme function makes it easy to apply your design to all figures with a single line of code. In this tutorial, we’ll cover: the essentials of the powerful ggplot2::theme() function, including how to adjust fonts, colors, sizing, and spacing;...
Hide text labels with small values to make charts made in ggplot easier to read
March 13, 2025
One issue that we often face when making data visualization in reports is text not fitting into graphs. This happened to us when working on reports for the Connecticut Data Collaborative and the Partnership for Strong Communities in Connecticut. The reports we made , which show key demographic and housing indicators for towns and counties across the state, have bar charts that show the housing cost burden for renters and home owners in the state. In addition to the categories severe burden...
From Overwhelm to Organization: Optimizing Data Workflows in R
February 20, 2025
Ever feel overwhelmed by a messy R script that's grown out of control? That's exactly what happened to Alberto Espinoza , Knowledge and Learning Manager at PEAK Grantmaking . In his job at PEAK Grantmaking, an organization that helps philanthropy to use equitable, effective grantmaking practices, Alberto supervises a Grants Management 101 class . As part of this training, Alberto has to analyze data from surveys that participants complete. With this training happening regularly, the data from...