Introduction to R
Teaching Instructor: Dror Hollander, Sackler School of Medicine, TAU.
Workshop date and time: Sunday, 3/1/2016 10:00-13:00.
and Sunday 7/2/2016 10:00-13:00
Number of Participants: up to 30 people.
Location: PC classroom 09, Sherman Building, Tel Aviv University.
To register, please fill the registration form.
Abstract
Did you ever find yourself sitting frustrated in front of an excel spreadsheet, repeating the same set of steps over and over? And then, did you find a bug in your calculations, and were forced to perform them once again? And again?
The constant introduction of high-throughput systems, such as gene expression arrays and next generation sequencing data, to biological laboratories forces the modern experimental biologist to learn efficient and computerized methods for exploring, analyzing, integrating and visualizing large datasets obtained in the lab. Use of cumbersome and inefficient software such as Excel is extremely tedious and offers only partial solutions. R offers it all.
R is a free programming language that offers a flexible, fast and highly sophisticated platform for DOING WHAT YOU WANT. R allows immediate integration of text-parsing and data mining tools, statistical analysis, and highly flexible and powerful visualization functions. Moreover, with a highly-active biological community constantly developing and updating packages for analyzing output of novel technologies, R commands allow data analysis using cutting-edge tools that are made available to the biologist. The main disadvantage of R is that it takes time to learn it – but this is what this workshop is for!
The workshop will offer an overview of R, and will aim to provide decent R skills to the non-computer-geek biologist. No prior knowledge in programming is needed.
Workshop Materials: