CPD130 SSA Canberra Workshop: Data visualisation with R

Statistical Society of Australia (SSA) Canberra branch warmly invites you to a workshop on Data Visualisation with R, taught by Prof. Di Cook and Dr. Emi Tanaka.

About the workshop:

Data visualisation is a key statistical tool for effective communication and to understand aspects of data and models. The statistical language R is used widely for data analysis and visualisation, e.g. the BBC Visual and Data Journalism team uses ggplot2 R-package to create production-ready charts.

This workshop will:

• Teach you how to create production-ready graphics using the grammar of graphics implemented in ggplot2 R-package (Day 1);
• Teach you also how to construct more complex plots, including maps, and discuss inference for statistical graphics to understand if what we see in a plot is really there (Day 2). 

The workshop will be hands-on with plenty of practical examples.

Completion of this course will be helpful for the Advanced Data Visualisation Workshop with R, to be run by SSA Canberra in the second half of 2021 (TBA).

About the presenters:

Dianne Cook is Professor of Business Analytics at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.  She is a world leader in data visualisation, especially the visualisation of high-dimensional data using tours with low-dimensional projections, and projection pursuit.  She is currently focusing on bridging the gap between exploratory graphics and statistical inference.  Di is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, past editor of the Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, current editor of the R Journal, elected Ordinary Member of the R Foundation, and elected member of the International Statistical Institute. 

Emi Tanaka is a Lecturer in Statistics at Monash University and the incoming President of SSA Vic. She is currently working on a statistical theory for conducting inference using data plots and is an early career researcher in multi-level modelling, and experimental design. She is an experienced and enthusiastic R user and instructor, and regularly teaches university courses and workshops to the broader community on data visualisation, including ggplot2.

Target audience:

This workshop is suitable for those who know how to use R but are not familiar or comfortable with ggplot2 or would like a refresher on ggplot2.  

Learning objectives:

Day 1: Dipping Your Toes into Data Visualisation with R

Presented by Emi Tanaka

• Review of tidy data format;

• Basics of the grammar of graphics;

• Drawing the basic data plot types (barchart, pie chart, histogram, density plot, scatterplot, boxplot) utilising a range of common geoms and variable mappings;

• Choosing colour wisely;

• All about scales, transforming data, setting limits, changing coordinate systems, axis specifications, ordering levels of categorical axes;

• Jazzing up your plot with different themes, plot annotations and combining plots together to make a publication-ready plot.

Day 2: Diving Deeper into Data Visualization with R

Presented by Di Cook

• Check your knowledge, a review of basic plotting with the grammar;

• Expanding your graphics toolbox to mapping, making choropleth maps, using map images as a base;

• Making your plots speak. Adding interactive elements including mouse-over labels, and sliders for controlling parameters, using plotly. Animating plots using gganimate;

• Learn how to decide on the best plot design for a problem, and how to  determine if what you see is a real structure.  

Basic requirements:

Day 1

• Basic R knowledge (e.g. you have used R to load data, create simple visualisations, perform basic analyses and write simple functions or more specifically, you are familiar with concepts in Cookbook for R by Winston Chang);

• Basic statistics (e.g. simple linear regression, hypothesis testing, basic summary statistics and plots);

• Computer (with ability to install R and R-packages), microphone and web camera; 

• Stable internet connection;

• Install the video conferencing software, zoom and know how to use zoom

Day 2:

• Day 1 requirements;

• Completed Day 1 OR know basic ggplot2

Desirable Skills:

• Know about tidy data (i.e. importing data and putting data into the right format for plotting);

• Some familiarity with tidyverse

Timetable:

Day 1

Day 2

Deadline:

Early bird registrations closes on midnight of Wednesday 31st March 2021. Regular registrations close on midnight of Friday 9th April 2021.

Cancellation policy:

Cancellations received prior to midnight of Monday 12 April 2021 will be refunded, minus a $20 administration fee. From then onwards, no part of the registration fee will be refunded. However, registrations are transferable within the same organisation. Please advise any changes to eo@statsoc.org.au.

Contacts:

Please contact the organisers: Pauline O'Shaughnessy (poshaugh@uow.edu.au) and/or SSA Canberra (ssacanberra@gmail.com) for further details. In particular, if your organisation would like to discuss bulk registration options, please contact Pauline O'Shaughnessy (poshaugh@uow.edu.au).