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Looking for even more? R in 3 Months is a cohort-based program to help you finally learn R.
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“Thank you for a very thorough and practical course about an important and initial task in data handling. In my own project, I am to work with data that are very far from tidy, and I am very grateful for the tools that you have provided me with. I was not aware that we can do so much with the data to make it more ready for statistical analysis.
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“This is one of the best introduction to R courses that I have taken. It is simple yet very powerful. I have learnt a lot of things in one day which were very confusing to me for the past 2 years. Thank you for opening my eyes and allowing me to see the possibilites that are there in R. I highly recommend this course to anyone starting out in R.
“I loved the content covered during the course; it was a basic and essential course, informing some fundamentals and uses of R. For those who don't have much practice and are looking to get to know R, like me, I recommend it.
“Thank you for the step-by-step tutorial and helpful tips!
“Its very useful course for beginner! Thank you so much :)
“Awesome course! It helped me understand the nitty-gritty parts of coding with R that I had struggled with so far. David is an awesome instructor who explains everything in an easily understandable manner. And if you still struggle, there's always the repeat button. :)
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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.
How to make heatmaps in ggplot
May 1, 2025
Heatmaps are a common way of representing data. In this blog post, I'll show you how to make your own heatmaps using ggplot. In the process, you'll learn a bit about working with the {sf} package, specifically the st_make_grid() function to make a grid, the st_intersection() function to clip the boundaries of your geography to the grid you create, and st_join() to do spatial joins. This blog post is adapted from a lesson in the Mapping with R course . If you want to learn to make heatmaps...
Use shadows in ggplot to highlight findings
April 24, 2025
In our consulting work, we make a lot of the data visualization for parameterized reporting . It’s something I spoke about in my 2024 Cascadia R Conf talk, How to Make a Thousand Plots Look Good: Data Viz Tips for Parameterized Reporting . One example I gave in this talk came from our work with the Johns Hopkins International Vaccine Access Center and the World Health Organization . In this project, we made reports for the Immunization Agenda 2030 project, which tracks the progress countries...
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;...