Resources for Learning and Teaching Statistical Computing

Image source: xkcd.com/1513/

General

Books

• Modern Dive: Statistical Inference via Data Science - book by Chester Ismay and Albert Kim

College Courses

• STAT 545 at UBC - Data wrangling, exploration, and analysis with R - Jenny Bryan
• Introduction to Data Science @ Duke - Mine Centenkaya-Rundel

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R, RStudio, and R Markdown

Downloading

1. Download R.
2. Download RStudio.

Use R and RStudio Online

• RStudio Cloud

References

• R for Data Science - book by Hadley Wickham & Garrett Grolemund
• Getting Used to R, RStudio, and R Markdown - book by Ismay and Kennedy
• Advanced R - book by Wickham
• Springer’s Use R! series
• Software Carpentry’s R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis tutorial
• John’s Hopkins Foundations Using R specialization through Coursera

R Markdown

• R Markdown: The Definitive Guide - book by Yihui Xie, J. J. Allaire, Garrett Grolemund
• R Markdown Cookbook - book by Yihui Xie, Christophe Dervieux, Emily Riederer
• Getting Started with R Markdown - Tutorial
• knitr - includes an exhaustive list of R chunk options
• R Markdown reference guide - your one-stop shop!
• Pimp my RMD: a few tips for R Markdown - a list of tips I use on a regular basis

Creating Websites in R

• Creating websites in R
• blogdown: Creating Websites with R Markdown - book by Yihui Xie, Amber Tomas, Alison Hill
  • Up & running with blogdown in 2021 - more up to date
• R Markdown: Websites

Creating Presentations in R

• Presentations with Beamer from R Markdown
• Beamer Tips slides by Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham and the source code to see how they were created
• Chapter 4 of R Markdown: The Definitive Guide on creating presentations
  • Includes link to beamer theme matrix
• Mastering R presentations

Data Visualization

• A ggplot2 tutorial for beautiful plotting in R - tutorial
• ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis - book by Hadley Wickham, author of the ggplot2 R package
• R Graphics Cookbook - book by Winston Chang
  • Abbreviated list of graphs
• Graphical Data Analysis with R - book by Antony Unwin

Cheatsheets

• RStudio Cheatsheets - scroll to the bottom to see contributed cheatsheets
• R Graphics for Intro Stats - Adam Loy
• Beautiful plotting in R: A ggplot2 cheatsheet - Zev Ross

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Git and Github

Downloading

1. Download Git
2. Create GitHub or Bitbucket account to host your repositories
3. Optional: download GitHub Desktop or Sourcetree GUI

References

• Happy Git and GitHub for the useR - book by Jenny Bryan
• GitHub Docs - GitHub’s own help documentation is incredibly useful
• Pro Git - online book on everything you’d every want to know about Git
• Udacity’s free course Version Control with Git
• Software Carpentry’s Version Control with Git tutorial

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SAS

Use SAS online

• SAS OnDemand

References

• Free SAS e-books
  • SAS Programming for R Users and corresponding course
• Recommended books for purchase:
  • Getting Started with SAS Programming
  • The Little SAS Book: A Primer

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Python

Downloading

• Download Anaconda Distribution to install Python and Jupyter Notebook

References

• IPython Cookbook - book by Cyrille Rossant
• Jupyter Notebook documentation
• Software Carpentry’s Programming with Python tutorial
• Udacity’s free course Introduction to Python Programming
• More links to Python resources for beginners…

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LaTeX

Downloading

• Download a full TeX distribution (e.g., MacTeX for MacOS or MiKTeX for Windows)

Use LaTeX Online

• Overleaf - online, collaborative LaTeX editor

References

• The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX - book by Oetiker, Partl, Hyna and Schlegl
• List of LaTeX mathematical symbols

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Teaching Computing

• Designing the Data Science Classroom
• Data Science in a Box
• teach-r Online Workshops
  • Workshop 1: Teaching R online with RStudio Cloud
  • Workshop 2: Building interactive tutorials in R
  • Workshop 3: Teaching computing with Git and Github

Journal Articles

• Special issue of JSDSE on computing in the statistics and DS curriculum
  • Implementing Version Control With Git and GitHub as a Learning Objective in Statistics and Data Science Courses - Beckman, Centinkaya-Rundel, Horton, Rundel, Sullivan & Tackett, JSDSE Vol 29, 2021
• Infrastructure and Tools for Teaching Computing Throughout the Statistical Curriculum - Centinkaya-Rundel & Rundel, TAS Vol 72, 2018