Online Course – 3rd Edition
Interactive Data Analysis and Visualization with R Shiny
October 26th-30th, 2020
Scientific Communication
Introduction to Python for Biology
January 11th-15th, 2021 (ONLINE)
This course will be delivered ONLINE: 15 hours of online live lessons, plus 20 hours of and assignments. A good internet connection is required to follow the course.
Course Overview
This course is for individuals considering developing Shiny apps to deliver their research. Thus, the goal will be to teach the skills necessary to translate static products (your current analysis in R) to dynamic products delivered via a simple web-based graphic-user interface.
After a brief survey of the available basic tools (widgets such as slider bars, check boxes, and pick lists), we will move quickly to learn more advanced interactive features.
Activities interspersed throughout the class will provide hands-on practice with sample biological and ecological data. By the end of the course, students will have built a portfolio of example code and will have designed, constructed, and published at least one example Shiny app.
Why Shiny?
Shiny turns static data products into interactive web apps. With interactive and reactive data visualizations, your audience directly engages with your data for stronger communication and better understanding. The Shiny apps can easily be launched directly to the web via shinyapps.io or Shiny Server to be run by anyone (they don’t need to download your data or have R!).
Other Shiny examples: K-means (statistics), TreeViewer (visualization of phylogenetic trees), Word Cloud (generator of word clouds).
REQUIREMENTS
This course is suitable for students that already have the basic R skills to open data and run analyses or build a basic figure – but who have no or limited prior experience with Shiny.
Participants must have a personal computer (Windows, Mac, Linux) with current versions of R and R Studio installed. A list of packages to preinstall will be sent to participants before the course.
The use of Webcam and headphones are strongly recommended, and a good internet connection.
Contact
LOCATION
This course will be delivered online.
Please check the schedule for the live online part, and be aware that it is GMT+1.
DATE
October 26th-30th, 2020
LANGUAGE
English
COURSE LENGTH & ECTS
35 hours online.
This course is equivalent to 2 ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) at the Life Science Zurich Graduate School.
The recognition of ECTS by other institutions depends on each university or school.
PLACES
Places are limited to 15 participants and will be occupied by strict registration order.
Participants who have completed the course will receive a certificate at the end of it.
Program
Program
Orientation and Introduction to Shiny.
- Getting everyone up and running.
- Overview of course procedures and expectations.
- Demonstration of Shiny products.
- Free publishing options with ShinyUI and RPub.
- A First Shiny App.
- Basic components: User Interface and Server components.
- Overview of available widgets (slider bars, pick lists, check boxes, etc.).
- Build basic apps: Use simple published examples as a guide, transcribe the code to work with a new dataset.
Focus on the User Interface.
- Common applications of Shiny (more practice with widgets).
- More practice with basic widgets to select parameters, subset data, etc.
- Build a basic Shiny app for your own data (or a class sample dataset).
- Dashboard Design Tools and Options.
- UI layout autoscaling vs. absolute position.
- Tabs and navigation bars.
- Conditional panels.
- More hands-on practice with your own data (or a class sample dataset).
Focus on Shiny Server.
- Putting the right code in the right places.
- What happens when you run Shiny? (and where are all your data objects?).
- Where and when to load data, libraries, and functions.
- Troubleshooting common problems.
- Reactive Programming.
- Base reactivity on project selection, data subset selection, or parameter selection.
- Use submit and isolate to manage conditional reactivity.
- Add a reactive element and submit button to your Shiny app built on Tuesday.
More Reactivity and More Practice.
- Interactive Plots.
- Use click, double click, hover, and brush to select data subsets from a plot.
- Build interactive plot using base plot and ggplot with your own data (or a class sample dataset).
- Build an interactive plot using ggplot with your own data (or a class sample dataset).
- Add code to print results of an interactive session.
- Successfully complete at least one of five possible exercises to ensure understanding and practice troubleshooting.
Publishing Shiny Material.
- Simple Sharing.
- Advice on file managemet for easy sharing.
- Orientation to RStudio’s hosting service, Shinyapps.io.
- Brief comments on other advanced sharing options (Shiny Server, GitHub, etc.).
- Share one of your apps with a classmate using zipped folder or Shinyapps.io.
- Shiny with R Markdown (Optional, or more practice building example apps).
- Intergrating Shiny content into R Markdown documents.
- Publishing results of reactive programming to an R Markdown report.
Fees
- Course Fee
- Early bird (until December 31st, 2019):
- 430 € *
(344 € for Ambassador Institutions) - Regular (after December 31st, 2019):
- 496 € *
(396.8 € for Ambassador Institutions) - This includes course material (VAT included).
* Participants from companies/industry will have an extra charge of 100 €.
You can check the list of Ambassador Institutions. If you want your institution to become a Transmitting Science Ambassador please contact us at communication@transmittingscience.com
Schedule
- Monday to Friday (GMT+1):
- 12:00 – 17:00 live sessions
The rest of the time will be taught with assignments, to be done between the live sessions.
Funding
Discounts are not cumulative and apply only on the Course Fee. We offer the possibility of paying in two instalments (contact courses@transmittingscience.com).
5 % Discount
Former participants will have a 5 % discount on the Course Fee.
20 % Discount
20 % discount on the Course Fee is offered for members of some organizations (Ambassador Institutions). If you want to apply to this discount please indicate it in the Registration form (proof will be asked later).
40 % Discount
Unemployed scientists living in the country were the course will be held, as well as PhD students based in that country without any grant or scholarship to develop their PhD, could benefit from a 40 % discount on the Course Fee. If you want to ask for this discount, please contact the course coordinator. That would apply for a maximum of 2 places and they will be covered by strict inscription order.
Registration
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Transmitting Science started in 2012 to manage specialized courses and workshops we were already organizing within our own partnerships. Up to date, we have already run more than 120 advanced courses in different topics related to Life Sciences.
All the courses are self-financed with participant’s fees and we strive to keep the fees to the minimum necessary for running them.
Our courses cover a wide range of research methods and are aimed at postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers and established academics from all over the world.
