This Wiki contains information for SOC360 Computational Social Science, Spring 2024, Rutgers University.
The main textbook we will be using this semester is R for Data Science (R4DS) by Hadley Wickham and Garrett Grolemund (which Bail also uses in the videos discussed above). We will work through most of this book over the first few weeks of the semester. I have indicated the relevant chapters each week. The textbook focuses on using R to work with data, drawing upon a set of packages known as the tidyverse, of which the first author, Hadley Wickham, is the lead developer. It is a well-organized and easy-to-follow introduction to the fundamentals of R.
We will be using RStudio for assignments in this class. You can download the free version of RStudio Desktop here. RStudio is an integrated development environment (IDE) that has a great deal of helpful functionality. You can use it for a range of tasks, including writing and running code, finding help, viewing plots, and examining data.
RMarkdown is a framework designed by the developers of RStudio that allows you to combine code, text, and other elements into the same document. RMarkdown can create slideshows and other documents. For example, the course syllabus and the slides I will use in the lectures are both created in RMarkdown. Course assignments will be written using RMarkdown. I recommend taking a look at this tutorial.
Github is a website used to store and share code. The most useful aspect of Github is version control. If you regularly store your code on Github then it is easy to keep a record of your work over time (similar to track changes in Word documents). All course materials will be hosted in a Github repository. You will be using Github to submit your course assignments.
You can sign up to Github here (no need to pay, just sign up for a free account). As students, you can get access to certain paid features for free by signing up for a student developer pack. Once you have made your account, follow the instructions here. You will likely need to upload a copy of your student ID or some other information. They should provide you with access within a few days.
Once you have an account, this tutorial will introduce you to most of what you will need to know.
- Install RStudio
- Install RMarkdown and read tutorial
- Make Github account
- Apply for Github student developer account
- Follow Github tutorial