Preface

The real goal of this manual is not to teach the R language per se, but to allow the students to manage the basic concepts in order to be able to explore and analyze data using R. After this course the student will be capable of clearly understand the R code that someone else wrote and customize her own code according to the need. This means having the possibility to explore different and more complex solutions for the student’s problems by exploring new packages and paving the way to become a statistician!

I also created also an ad-hoc R playground accessible here. The R playground allows the student to exercise in order to reinforce her knowledge of R and data analysis. Exercises are fundamental in order to fix the knowledge acquired in class. The platform is structured in the same way as this manual in order to have a linear learning process. I finally want to remark that the code I provide is “my best and easiest version of the solution”, I hope you will appreciate it. In fact, with R, it is possible to do the same thing in 1000 different ways, and by looking at the internet you can have a confirmation of it.

This website is free to use, and is licensed under the GNU General Public License 2.0. If you’d like a pdf copy of the book, you can download it here.

Author

Federico Roscioli is a PhD Student in Economics and Finance at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. He has an international experience as a consultant for various International Organizations and Research Institutes and a background as freelance photojournalist. His research interests include: development issues, environmental sustainability, poverty, social protection, food security and nutrition.

www.federicoroscioli.com

Acknowledgements

This book was written following the teachings of Matteo Mazziotta (ISTAT).