Data Science: R Basics
- Free to audit
- Paid certificate
- Course certificate
- Beginner
- 8 weeks
Data Science: R Basics is the first course in HarvardX's Professional Certificate in Data Science and introduces the R language through a single real-world dataset on crime in the United States. You learn R's functions and data types, how to work with vectors, sorting and indexing, and general programming features such as if-else statements and for loops, before moving on to wrangling data with dplyr and making plots. The course deliberately builds a foundation rather than covering every R skill, preparing you for the later courses in the series on probability, inference, regression and machine learning; across the series Harvard also introduces ggplot2, UNIX/Linux file organisation, git and GitHub, and reproducible documents in RStudio.
This course is self-paced, eight weeks long at 1 to 2 hours per week, and rated introductory. Harvard lists it as free to audit on edX, with a verified certificate available for $219.
What you’ll learn
- Read and write basic R syntax
- Work with R data types, vectors, arithmetic and indexing
- Sort data and use if-else statements and for loops
- Wrangle data with dplyr
- Make plots to explore a real dataset
Who it’s for
Beginners who want to learn R for data analysis, especially those planning to continue through the rest of the data science series.
Source: Harvard Online (opens in a new tab) · Verified · Report a change
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