Beginners_R_Course_2026
Beginners R Course 2026
[!CAUTION] This is the development version of the Repository. The Final verson will ve available before the course starts. All the features might be working. Use at your own risk !!!
- !!! This is A Beta Version !!!
[!NOTE]
LAST UPDATE: 15.05.2026
R Programming Course for Biologists
Welcome to our R Programming Course specifically designed for biologists, including master and PhD students. This course aims to equip participants with basic R programming skills and introduce them to statistical analysis techniques applicable in molecular biology.
Course Overview
Participants will learn through a mix of lectures, hands-on exercises, and interactive discussions. By the end of the course, you should be able to perform data manipulation, create visualizations, and conduct statistical analyses using R
Prerequisites
Participants are expected to:
1- have the following installed on their computers before the course begins:
You can find the installation guides once you click on them:
2- install the following R-libraries:
To install these packages, you can use the following R command:
install.packages(c("knitr", "rmarkdown"))
in the R Console.
3- have a GitHub account.
Important Installation Notice
It’s crucial for all participants to install R, RStudio, and Git prior to the start of the course. These tools are essential for participating in the course exercises and for following along with the instruction.
[!IMPORTANT]
Pre-Course Zoom Session
Considering the importance of a smooth start to our course, we’re planning to host a Zoom pre-course session on May the 12th at 10:00 AM. This session is intended to help with the installation process, address any issues you might encounter, and answer any questions.
Trouble Installing?
If you encounter any issues during the installation process, please:
- Refer to the FAQs and troubleshooting guides provided on the respective software download pages.
- Post your issue on the GitHub issues section of this repository. Please provide as much detail as possible about the problem you’re experiencing.
- Contact us directly via email, and we’ll do our best to assist you.
Practice Before the Course
We strongly recommend that you try to familiarize yourself with R and RStudio by following some basic tutorials or trying out simple exercises. This will help you hit the ground running when the course starts.
Course Content
Day 1:
Session 1 :: Introduction to R Basics
Session 2 :: Basic Concepts in R
- Variables
- Data Types
- R Data Structure
- Operators
Session 3 :: More Basic Concepts in R
- Control Flow
- R Loops
- The apply family(s,l,v)
- Data IO (read & write files)
- Data Reshaping (base)
Day 2:
- R Plots (base)
Session 6 :: Descriptive Statistics
Session 7 :: Practice 1
Session 8 :: Practice 2
Getting Started
To get started with the course, follow the link below
https://cecadbioinformaticscorefacility.github.io/Beginners_R_Course_2026/
To clone this repository using Git:
git clone https://github.com/CECADBioinformaticsCoreFacility/Beginners_R_Course_2026.git
Navigate into the cloned directory to access all course materials, datasets, and exercises.
Resources
For further learning and exploration of R, we recommend the following resources:
Contributing
We welcome contributions to improve the course materials. Please feel free to fork the repository, make changes, and submit a pull request.
Contact
For any queries regarding the course, please reach out to us at cecad-bifacility-course@uni-koeln.de
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all contributors and participants for making this course possible. Special thanks to the R community for the comprehensive resources and support.