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Individual Course

Data Science: R Basics

Course Length

8 weeks

1-2 hours a week

Featuring faculty from:

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health LogoHarvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Enroll as Individual

Certificate Price:

$ 219

Enroll on edX

Enroll as Individual

Certificate Price:

$ 219

Enroll on edX

In this online course taught by Harvard Professor Rafael Irizarry, learn how to Build a foundation in R and learn how to wrangle, analyze, and visualize data.

The first in our Professional Certificate Program in Data Science, this course will introduce you to the basics of R programming. You can better retain R when you learn it to solve a specific problem, so you'll use a real-world dataset about crime in the United States. You will learn the R skills needed to answer essential questions about differences in crime across the different states.

We'll cover R's functions and data types, then tackle how to operate on vectors and when to use advanced functions like sorting. You'll learn how to apply general programming features like "if-else," and "for loop" commands, and how to wrangle, analyze and visualize data.

Rather than covering every R skill you might need, you'll build a strong foundation to prepare you for the more in-depth courses later in the series, where we cover concepts like probability, inference, regression, and machine learning. We help you develop a skill set that includes R programming, data wrangling with dplyr, data visualization with ggplot2, file organization with UNIX/Linux, version control with git and GitHub, and reproducible document preparation with RStudio.

The demand for skilled data science practitioners is rapidly growing, and this series prepares you to tackle real-world data analysis challenges.

Self-Guided

EDX

  • Radha

Harvard Case Method Premium Learning

Learning Outcome

Basic R syntax

Learning Outcome

Foundational R programming concepts such as data types, vectors arithmetic, and indexing

Learning Outcome

How to perform operations in R including sorting, data wrangling using dplyr, and making plots

  • Learn from Harvard faculty
  • Do it on your own time
  • Get a certificate, add it to your resume
  • Be part of the Harvard Community
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Faculty

Rafael Irizarry

Your Instructor

Rafael Irizarry

Professor of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Rafael Irizarry is a Professor of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. For the past 15 years, Dr. Irizarry’s research has focused on the analysis of genomics data. During this time, he has also taught several classes, all related to applied statistics. Dr. Irizarry is one of the founders of the Bioconductor Project, an open source and open development software project for the analysis of genomic data. His publications related to these topics have been highly cited and his software implementations widely downloaded.

Read full bio.

The Data Science R program was a great way to fill the gap between my professional and academic experience and gave me the confidence to tackle new challenges.
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Radha

Complete your journey with this Professional Certificate Series

These courses can be bundled together to receive a professional certificate at a discounted price.

Learn More
  • 9 Courses
  • 1 Year & 5 Months
  • Earn Your Certificate
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Ways to take this course

Audit or Pursue a Verified Certificate

A Verified Certificate costs $219 and provides unlimited access to full course materials, activities, tests, and forums. At the end of the course, learners who earn a passing grade can receive a certificate.

⁠Alternatively, learners can Audit the course for free and have access to select course material, activities, tests, and forums. Please note that this track does not offer a certificate for learners who earn a passing grade.

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