UCL R User Group
The UCL R user group is a friendly group for R users to meet, hear a talk and discuss R questions. Originally set up in 2019 for staff and postgrad students at the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources (BSEER), in 2020 we expanded to welcome the wider R community at UCL and beyond.
We currently meet online every 4 weeks on Thursdays at 1-2pm UK time online and in person. The idea is to create a friendly space for R users to come together, listen to a talk (typically 20-45 minutes) and ask questions. We aim to have a variety of talks to benefit beginners and more advanced R users. To join the group email e.webborn@ucl.ac.uk
Talk recordings are available to group members on our Microsoft Teams group. Contact me to join the group and get a link to the MS Teams group. Occasionally our talk materials are on Github repository.
2022/23 events: online at 1pm every 4th Thursday of term (approximately)
| Date | Title | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 13th Oct 2022 | Scientific writing and reproducible research with R Markdown | Alasdair Warwick |
| 10th Nov 2022 | Using R to study hospital use for physical health in people with severe mental illness | Naomi Launders |
| 8th Dec 2022 | The false positive risk: a shiny app | David Colquhoun |
| 19th Jan 2023 | Dynamic documents using Quarto | Ajay Koli |
| 16th Feb 2023 | Using the UK Government People’s Survey to Understand the Experiences of Civil Servants who identify as Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual – with the help of R! | Tyler Elliott |
| 23rd Mar 2023 | R (or Python) for Open and Reproducible Science | Andrew Mitchell |
| TBD | Visualizing choice experiment data in ggplot | Nicole Watson |
| 25th May 2023 | Using predictive modelling techniques to study the impact of COVID-19 on domestic energy consumption in GB (and how to make some nice-looking plots) | Ellen Zapata-Webborn |
| 22nd June 2023 | An introduction to testing R code | Ed Lowther |
UCL R User Group end-of-year Meetup Wednesday 6th July 2022
Join us for an exciting talk from Victoria and Albert Museum’s Bhavesh Shah on his work as a data scientist using R. We’ll also be hosting a peer-programming session for R users to bring their code for help and feedback. Should be a great opportunity to meet other R users, find out how other people code and improve or get help with your code. Plenty of refreshments for all those who can join us in person. For all the details and to sign up check out https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ucl-r-user-group-end-of-year-meetup-tickets-379017049197
2021/22 events: online at 1pm every 4th Thursday of term (approximately)
| Date (2021) | Title | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 28th Oct | Introducing the group and the organisers | Ellen Webborn & Scott Orr |
| 2nd Nov | In-person SOCIAL* | Organised by Ellen and Scott |
| 18th Nov | Building a stochastic model of COVID-19 outbreaks in homeless accommodation settings | Dan Lewer |
| 16th Dec | ~Postponed~ | |
| 27th Jan | The use of R in developing analytical literacy for policy | Ine Steenmans |
| 23rd Feb | Working with data: Introducing and comparing data.table and dplyr | Ellen Webborn & Jonathan Bourne |
| 24th Mar | Parallel R | Ed Lowther |
* 1-2pm Tuesday 26th October at the UCL Student Centre (inside on the main steps. An informal, bring-your-own-lunch get-together, with cake.
R Project Showcase, Thursday 17th June 2021
In June 2021 the UCL R User Group held our the first R Project Showcase - a free online event showcasing R projects by UCL students and early-career researchers (ECRs), and part of the UCL Festival of Code. Dr Kirsten McMillan from Dogs Trust gave the keynote speech and there were prizes for best student/ECR talk in each category. The book of abstracts is available here.
2020/21 talks (1pm every 4th Thursday)
| Date (2020) | Title | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 1st Oct | Teaching R remotely | Ayrton Bourn |
| 29th Oct | Working with data: Introducing and comparing data.table and dplyr | Ellen Webborn & Jonno Bourne |
| 26th Nov | Versioning code with Git | Kenan Direk |
| Date (2021) | Title | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 28th Jan | Getting help in R* | Ella Kaye |
| 18th Feb | The graph is always greener: Making (better) use of colour in R | Scott Orr |
| 25th Mar | Working with large datasets in R | Bin Chi |
| 15th Apr | Multilevel modelling with pretty outputs in R | Andrew Mitchell |
| 13th May | Innovating with R-Studio for online course delivery: lectures, practicals, thesis templates and more! | Joanna Wilkin & Andrew Maclachlan |
| 10th Jun | tba |
* Slides say RLadies Coventry but otherwise they’re the same
2019/20 talks
- Introduction to RMarkdown Ellen Webborn
- Introduction to Spatial Analysis and Mapping with R Connor Galbraith
- Tips and tricks for designing effective figures in base R Scott Orr
- Optimising algorithms Jonno Bourne
- Regression in R and general good practice Patrick de Mars
- Interactive Visualisations in R Despina Manouseli
- How I use R (with a focus on dplyr) Harry Kennard
- Cluster Analysis in R with Factoextra and NbClust Andrew Mitchell
Get involved
To find out more, join the group, offer to give a talk, or provide feedback please email e.webborn@ucl.ac.uk