R Scripts and Projects

The R Projects consist of html files with the output from running R scripts in RStudio. Using a web browser, these files detail various applications of R in the course.

Interested readers may download the compressed (zipped) folders and replicate the R / RStudio computations on their own computer.

The following instructions apply to executing R scripts in the first R Project. For all other R Projects, follow the same instructions (skipping step 1) replacing "rproject1.zip" with the corresponding compressed (zipped) folder for that project.

1. Download / Install R and the Rstudio desktop on your computer

http://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/

http://cran.rstudio.com/

2. Download the compressed folder for the R Project ("rproject1.zip" for Project 1) to your computer and extract the project directory, e.g., "rproject1" (for Project 1).
3. Start the R-Studio application. From the top bar of commands
   • select "File", then "New Project ...", then for the "Create Project from" option select "Create Project from Existing Directory"
   • with the browser that appears, navigate to select the extracted directory "rproject1" (for Project 1, or "rproject2" for Project 2, etc.)
4. The R-Studio application opens with a 4-panel display. The lower left panel is a console for typing R commands directly or viewing output from executed R commands. The lower right panel has tabs [Files|Plots|Packages|Help]. In the lower right panel, select the Files tab and open one of the R Script files, e.g., for Project 1 select the file "Rproject1_script1.r" by clicking on the file name. The file will open in new tab in the top left panel.
5. Go to the file in the top left panel: Rproject1_script1.r. Execute the script file by either pressing the "Source" button at the top tool bar of the file window, or highlighting commands in the file and typing Control-Enter or Control-r. The html file in the project directory can be re-created (compiled) by pressing the "notebook" icon at the middle of the top bar of the top-left script window. The html file is easily viewed in a web browser and documents the R commands and output from executing the R script.
6. To exit R-Studio, either type: q() # at the console, or select "File / Quit R" from the Tool Bar at the top of R-Studio. (It asks you to type "n" or "y" to not-save or save the workspace ".RData". You can type "n" since the scripts are designed to load relevant R workspaces explicitly; typing "y" will save any objects you might have created in the R workspace.)

Note: When you restart R-Studio, the application should open automatically with the same panel of open files.