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Module 2

The workflow one uses for data analysis will determine the efficiency and reproducibility of that analysis. For example…

• one day you will need to stop in the middle of your analysis, go do something else and then the next day return to your analysis and pick up where you left off.
• one day you will be working on multiple analyses simultaneously and you will want to keep them organized in a separate fashion.
• one day you will need to go back to an analysis you did two months ago and re-execute the analysis with new data.
• one day you will need to turn your thesis analysis into a written report and then convert the same analysis into a defense presentation.

To be an effective and efficient analyst you need to understand how to manage your analytic workflow so that it fosters an organized environment and allows you to easily reproduce your work. Furthermore, our data analysis should rarely live independent from our written report but, rather, be integrated with it. This module will teach you how to organize your R files with R Projects and how you can use R Markdown in notebook mode for analyst-to-analyst communication, and in report mode for analyst-to-decision-maker communication.

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Tutorials & Resources

Read & work through the following prior to class.

Reproducibility

• Read Reproducible Research in Computational Science.
• Read A Statistical Definition for Reproducibility and Replicability or the blog post The Real Reason Reproducible Research is Important that provides a shorter summary.

Reproducibility & Analytic Workflow in R

• Read the R Projects tutorial and watch the Projects in RStudio webinar.
• Read the R Markdown tutorial and watch the Getting Started with R Markdown webinar.
• Read the R Notebooks tutorial and watch the Introducing Notebooks with R Markdown webinar (optional).

Note: If you are unable to produce the PDF report with R Markdown and your error says something along the lines of "pandoc: pdflatex not found. pdflatex is needed for pdf output." then you need to install a recommended TeX distribution for your platform:

• Windows: MiKTeX (Complete) - http://miktex.org/2.9/setup (NOTE: Be sure to download the Complete rather than Basic installation).
• Mac OS X: TexLive 2013 (Full) - http://tug.org/mactex/ (NOTE: Download with Safari rather than Chrome strongly recommended).

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Class Prep

Complete the following before class:

1. Follow along in the Getting Started with R Markdown webinar to create the final integrated .Rmd file that produces the dynamic stock report. If you are having any hiccups in getting the final HTML and PDF reports to populate you will have a chance to work with your group in class to resolve.
2. Bring an electronic headshot (.png, jpeg.) of yourself to class. You may also want to bring a current resume or bio as it will help you with the in-class activity.

You can download class material here: