[R-sig-teaching] R for introductory epidemiology for MPH students--base or with a package or two?

[Randall Pruim]

Christopher,

It sounds to me like you are the right track to answering your own question.  There are certainly packages that make some things much easier (like the tidyverse suite you mention), and in the end you will need to match what you choose to your audience and your goals.

So my take is this:

	* there is no one right answer,
	* there is no reason to avoid packages just for the sake of avoiding packages.

Of course, now comes the work: figuring out the right set of packages (and functions within them) for your situation.

Best of luck!

—rjp



> On Jul 2, 2018, at 4:30 PM, Christopher W. Ryan <cryan using binghamton.edu> wrote:
> 
> I'll be teaching intro epidemiology in a new MPH program, starting this
> fall. Weekly sessions, each 3 hours long. Expecting 12-20 students. I
> plan to try to make it fairly interactive, with a "computer lab" as part
> of almost every class session. Using R. I'll do an initial "needs
> assessment" prior to or on first day of class; for now I assume none of
> the students are at all familiar with R. My first thought was to limit
> my efforts to base R, rather than try to use any installable packages.
> Any opinions about that? I specifically wonder whether Hadley Wickham's
> tidyverse way of doing things is become so commonplace (and rightly so!)
> that I should introduce this. It certainly makes data wrangling much
> easier, and that is a lot of what epidemiologists do, since we are so
> often given existing data that were not recorded with future analyses in
> mind.
> 
> Thoughts on any of the above?  Thanks.
> 
> --Chris Ryan, MD, MS
> Binghamton University,
> SUNY Upstate Medical University,
> and
> Broome County Health Department, NY, US
> 
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