[R-sig-teaching] large data, purpose of the SIG, teaching with R
Randall Pruim
rpruim at calvin.edu
Fri Jan 18 17:42:05 CET 2013
I'm not sure I would call the list completely unsuitable for your question, but it is borderline. My main point (also expressed in Bob's reply) is that you might get better answers elsewhere because there may be more people with more expertise in this area on other lists.
As a side note, I think that we are heading into an era where using more large data sets in lower level courses may become more common. So this may come back around to become very appropriate for this list (although this list may still be shorter on the expertise to answer your questions fully than some other lists).
In any case, good luck solving your large data problems.
As for the usefulness and (intended) scope of the SIG as it currently exists, I'd have to think more about that. It seems to me that the trend is toward more use of R in undergraduate courses, especially in second courses and in courses for majors and minors, but also in intro courses. But my view of the world may be distorted by the fact that I have been heavily involved in that the last few years.
Finally, I'll mention one outcome of the work described in the preceding paragraph is an R package (co-developed with Danny Kaplan and Nick Horton) that we think makes it much easier to teach statistics using R. The package is called mosaic and is available on CRAN. We are getting closer and closer to something we are willing to call version 1.0. Perhaps in a separate message I can say a bit more about what is in that package while there may still be time to adjust things for second semester courses that are about to begin or have just begun.
---rjp
On Jan 18, 2013, at 10:20 AM, gaurav singh wrote:
> Thank you Randall very much for your help. I didn't know that this list was
> completely unsuitable for this type of a question. I assumed this list
> would be with reference to both teaching as well for students who need and
> use R in their university courses. In any case, thanks for informing me
> that this is a wrong list and I will post my other questions to some more
> relevant list.
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 4:12 PM, 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
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Regards
> Gaurav Singh
>
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>
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