Using R to produce innovative, quick and reproducible evidence

By Claire Benard, formerly of Crisis UK and now with National Council for Voluntary Organizations (NCVO). 

Most people who work with data in MERL will have heard of R. Some people will have been properly introduced to it, but only a few will invest the necessary time in learning how to use it. Being a relatively late convert, I wanted to share my experience of moving from a traditional data analysis software package to a language based one, so I did a Lightning Talk at MERL Tech London. (You can watch the video below.)

First things first, what is R?

Aside from being the 18^th letter of the alphabet, R is also a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. 

But wait, you say… why should I use it?

This is what the five-minute video below is about, but in short, here are a few reasons:

• There is nothing your current software package does that R doesn’t do.
• R is free.
• Using a programming language makes the analysis easy to reproduce, whether it’s because you need to produce similar analysis year on year or because you have a team of analysts who need to collaborate and understand each other’s work.
• R is an open source technology. People from all backgrounds contribute to it and make new tools available for free regularly. This is you’re insurance to stay at the cutting edge of what is being developed.

Well, then, how do I get started? you wonder… 

If you’re more MERL than Tech, learning a new programming language can be daunting. There is a time and money cost to it and it’s hard to know where to start if you’re on your own.

In the video, I give a few tips. It’s also worth checking out free/cheap training online (for example here or here) ; looking out for a user group near you and getting advice from blogs, forums and newsletters.

Check out Claire’s presentation too if you want more info!