[R-sig-teaching] Convincing other colleagues to use R in the classroom

Fri Jan 18 17:01:08 CET 2013

Hi Paula,

I havent used R in any research, but I am currently using it in an analytics firm.

The way I perceive our analysis goes is:

Step 1:Data Standardization:
[Approx. 70% time invested]
-Data Cleaning
-Data Manipulation
-Data standardization to make it immediately consumable for statistical analysis

Step 2: Exploratory Data Analysis & Statistical Analysis:
[Approx. 20% time invested]

-Data Sanity Check [Business Meaning Validation]
	-Identification of Outliers/Missing Values/ Inappropriate values
-Statistical Analysis [Modeling/Hypothesis testing etc.]
On the basis of feedback from Step 2- we re-massage, re-standardize the data (Step 1 again).

Step 3: Assimilation of results and presentation to the  end client
[Approx. 10% time invested]

The methodology we are now looking up to is
1-Use SQL (MySQL/MS SQL)  for Step 1
2-Use R GUIs - like Rcmdr-for EDA & Statistical Analysis

Rcmdr is wonderful to get started with R because it produces codes of the operation it performed-[and you can edit and run the same there itself]  which in turn increases the grasping of syntax.

Once an individual gets started with a small case study- hands on Rcmdr (Button click)- they are more inclined to get more involved with it.
A vital element here is the DATA MANIPULATION concept in R- which is difficult to grasp- and shoos away beginners. I got round it by using the SQLdf package- which lets you do simple manipulations in R using SQL language.

Once sufficient interaction happens- the learner automatically starts dealing with the tougher (slightly unpalatable) parts of R.

Please use a small hands on 15 minute GUI based analysis case study in your one hour session.
And let people not worry about the data standardization techniques of R.

These are my humble opinion based on the limited experience I have.

Regards,
Amul Badjatya.
www(dot)amulbadjatya(dot)com

-----Original Message-----
From: r-sig-teaching-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-sig-teaching-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Paula Grafton Young
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 9:14 PM
To: bob at statland.org
Cc: R-sig-teaching
Subject: [R-sig-teaching] Convincing other colleagues to use R in the classroom

Re: the post from bob at statland.org: As one of those people who uses R in introductory statistics courses, I hope that this list does not go away. I agree that most of the posts I see are off-topic but the ones that are on-topic have been helpful to me in the classroom. Perhaps a name change would be in order to avoid the confusion relayed by the previous post on reading large data sets--maybe R-sig-ClassroomTeaching or something like that to make it clearer.

I do actually have a question that I hope is relevant. I chose to adopt R for all the reasons most people adopt it--open source, accurate, extensible, platform independent. I thought that I would be able to convince my colleagues in other departments to at least consider using R (with something like RKWard or another GUI). I have failed miserably in doing so. I've offered workshops, invited colleagues to attend the R labs for my classes, and have had minimal response (one political scientist, one ecologist).
Even having students from my classes do demonstrations of phenomenal graphical representations of data sets didn't convince colleagues to even download R (except for again, the political scientist; the ecologist already had it).

I teach at a very small college with a very small IT budget and no departmental budgets for software. The sociologists, economists and business administration faculty won't let go of SPSS n the classroom; the biology faculty use Excel and SPSS, with the exception of the ecologist mentioned previously; the psychology faculty will only use calculators and tables.

So, what I would like to hear from some of you at other institutions is what can I do to convince/encourage my colleagues in other departments to adopt R and save our institution a significant amount of money in licensing?

Thank you in advance for your insights and advice.

---
Dr. Paula Grafton Young
Associate Professor of Mathematics
Chair, Curriculum Committee, 2011 - 2013 Chair, Strategic Planning Steering Committee, 2012 - 2013 paula.young at salem.edu
336.721.2747 (O)
336.721.2653 (F)

 <http://www.facebook.com/SalemCollege><http://www.twitter.com/SalemCollege>

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 10:12 AM, Bob <bob at statland.org> wrote:

>
> I am one of the people who lobbied for the creation of this list long 
> ago.  I am not sure R is a great choice for a first course in 
> statistics, but I thought that if someone chose to use it, then they 
> and their students might need all the help they could get to make it 
> easier for the class.  But right from the beginning, the bulk of the 
> posts to the list were like this latest one quoted below -- questions 
> about how to do something with R that has no obvious connection to 
> pedagogy or to using R in a first course.  This means that those of us 
> interested in the actual topic of this list get lots of off-topic 
> messages, while those who post the messages reach only a small 
> audience that may not be interested in their question.  Some off topic 
> posts are answered, some ingnored, and some posters get redirected 
> (even scolded) toward a more appropriate list.  I see only losers in 
> this process.
>
> So my question is whether this list really serves any useful purpose, 
> or does it just siphon off queries that should have gone elsewhere?
> Those who post those queries would be likely to get an answer, and get 
> it sooner, if they posted to an appropriate list in the first place.
> My own answer is that this list is not useful at the present time.
> Possibly in the future more people will be interested in R for an 
> introductory course and then they might be glad if this list were 
> still alive, but so far...
>
> So I am wondering what others on the list think.
>
> Here's the official description of this list.
>
> Special Interest Group (SIG) on teaching statistics with R. The 
> primary purpose of the group is to provide a forum where instructors 
> using R in their statistics courses can share ideas, teaching 
> materials, and experiences. One particular focus of the SIG is to 
> provide helpful support to instructors new to R who are teaching 
> introductory statistics courses populated with students with little 
> experience in statistics, statistical software, and command line 
> interfaces.
>
> Here is where most posts to this list really should have gone.
>
> R-help
>
>     The ?main? R mailing list, for discussion about problems and
>     solutions using R, announcements (not covered by ?R-announce? or
>     ?R-packages?, see above), about the availability of new
>     functionality for R and documentation of R, comparison and
>     compatibility with S-plus, and for the posting of nice examples
>     and benchmarks.
>
> Forwarded message:
> >
> > Hi Everyone,
> >
> > I am a little new to R and the first problem I am facing is the 
> > dilemma whether R is suitable for files of size 2 GB's and slightly 
> > more then 2 Million rows. When I try importing the data using 
> > read.table, it seems to take forever and I have to cancel the 
> > command. Are there any special techniques or methods which i can use 
> > or some tricks of the game that I should keep in mind in order to be 
> > able to do data analysis on such large files using R?
>
>
> ------->  First-time AP Stats. teacher?  Help is on the way! See
> http://courses.ncssm.edu/math/Stat_Inst/Stats2007/Bob%20Hayden/Relief.html
>       _
>      | |          Robert W. Hayden
>      | |          142 Main Street
>     /  |          Apartment 104
>    |   |          Jaffrey, New Hampshire 03452  USA
>    |   |          email: bob@ the site below
>   /    |          website: http://statland.org
>  | x   /          phone: (603) 532-7224 (home)
>  ''''''
>
> _______________________________________________
> R-sig-teaching at r-project.org mailing list 
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-teaching
>

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