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“I've used R quite a bit in the past, but until taking this course, I felt like I was navigating a maze with my eyes closed -- running bits and pieces of code and troubleshooting each time I bumped into a wall, but never truly understanding where I'd been or where I was headed. "Getting Started with R" is the map to the maze that I never knew I needed, but now don't know how I'd live without! David clearly explains foundational concepts and makes R so much easier to understand. Whether you're brand-new to R or have been using it for years, I highly recommend this course.
“I am speechless! I have been trying to feel comfortable with R for so many years. I used to spend so much time looking for resources on the internet, trying to put all the pieces together, and I was always defeated. This course is an excellent shortcut to learning R.
“Hello, i really appreaciated the way the actions in R were described. However, i still struggle to understand the concrete benefit of R. I am wondering, wheter R can do controlling reports as well ? I mean, i work for a retail company, and every month i have to prepare revenue, profit reports of sales of the different product groups. I usually prepare these reports in Excel..... so i monthly have to export all the necassary data from our ERP-System into Excel sheets and then i have to collect and prepare them in one report. Do u think R Studio can do the same thing so that it is less effort for me?
“I'm extremely proud and happy to announce that in March I received a scholarship for R 3 in Months Course by R for the Rest of Us thanks to David Keyes and Charlie Joey Hadley. I want to express my deep appreciation for this amazing program, which is greatly helping me in significant professional growth. Their expertise, dedication, and commitment to helping students succeed in their different fields using data analysis and visualization in R is admirable and praiseworthy. Doing this course was definitely an enjoyable experience. Eternal thanks to R for the Rest of Us and to David & Charlie.
“This was an easy to follow course.
“Excellent course to know the basics of this great tool (R).
“LOVED the course! Thank you so much for keeping everything high level enough that we don't get lost in the weeds but also providing so much helpful information. I've gone through other courses for beginners and came away still not knowing what a package was or how to import data. This course was perfect.
“I've been dipping my toes in the R water for many years, your site and approach has been the most accessible and useful by far!
“The lessons were enjoyable and easy to understand, with step by step guidance. Thank you 😊
“David, Just a note to say thank you for a clear, concise and straightforward approach to R. Shout out to Chris Garmon, University of Missouri-Kansas City, MO professor in graduate school course, Research Methods in Public Administration for steering students to your free, easily understandable course. You do a great job taking the scariness out of R by taking us step by step through learning how to use R and explaining the power R has in being able to tell a story through data and analyzing information to make decisions. Professor Garmon told us that The Washington Post uses R for it's data and that's quite a seal of approval. Thanks again for a great course. Bernita Cauthon, Kansas City, Missouri
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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
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;...