[R] Staging area for data before read into R

[Christopher W. Ryan]

this is also the sort of thing that EpiData does very well.  That's what
it was designed for:  data entry with minimal errors.  Also simplifies
double data entry for error checking, if you need/want that.


--Chris
Christopher W. Ryan, MD
SUNY Upstate Medical University Clinical Campus at Binghamton
40 Arch Street, Johnson City, NY  13790
cryanatbinghamtondotedu
PGP public keys available at http://home.stny.rr.com/ryancw/



Greg Snow wrote:
> Stephen,
> 
> . . . . .
> 
> Going the database route is not that much to learn to get started.  You can use MSAccess, or the OpenOffice database, create a new table and enter the names of each column along with the data type (this is a big advantage in that it will not allow you to enter character data where numbers are expected, forces dates to look like dates, etc.).  It is not that much extra work to enter valid levels for what will become factors (e.g. "Male" and "Female" for sex, so that those are the only values allowed, my current record for datasets entered by others using spreadsheets is 9 sexes).  Then you can pick up more as you go along, but setting up the first database to enter data should only take you an hour or so to learn the basics.
>
> 
> --
> Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D.
> Statistical Data Center
> Intermountain Healthcare
> greg.snow at imail.org
> 801.408.8111
>