Many ecologists have started using the R statistical programming language to facilitate data analysis and visualization for their research. It is popular both because of its power and flexibility, but also because it makes it easier to produce analyses that are well­-documented and reproducible. Perhaps best of all, it’s completely free! This workshop is meant for total beginners (of all career stages) who may have heard of R but never used it themselves, or for those who have just started using R but want a more formal introduction to the programming environment and to some general best practices. We will cover loading data, calculating basic statistics, and making plots. We will also highlight best practices for scientific computing along the way, including how to set up a directory structure and how to write well­ commented, well­ structured code. We will introduce the RStudio software environment and point out the benefits of using it to facilitate script writing.

All participants must bring their own laptop with R and RStudio (available free online for all platforms at rstudio.com) pre­installed. All data files and code for this workshop will be made publicly available on github.com, so participants as well as those unable to attend will have access to them as a resource.