Help is on the Way
The following are tutorials on the basics of data collection, structuring, and data analysis, recorded at the DigiLab.
Tutorials
Instructor: Kyle Vanderniet
Handout
- Use this handout to follow along with Kyle’s Excel videos.
Sample Data
- Use this data to work alongside Kyle.
Videos
Kyle starts this series off by explaining the very basics and how to navigate through Excel. He goes over how to insert, copy, paste, drag, fill your data. Most people will know how to do this, but it is important to assure that everyone is on the same page before continuing throughout this website.
Kyle covers some more advanced topics on how to control the layout and structure of your data. Alignment, merge, filter, sorting, fill, color, and size are some of what Kyle dives into. He makes sure that the viewer has a good understanding of the different menus and the data tab in Excel to give the user more control over their workbooks.
Kyle uses this subject of conditional formatting to introduce the viewers to the logic of formulas that are discussed, specifically in the following video. He covers some of the most commonly used formulas (IF, SUM. COUNT, TRIM, VLOOKUP, CONCATENATE, DAYS, NOW, TODAY, ROUND, ETC). Also, Kyle breaks these down so learning how to nest certain functions makes more sense.
Functions and Nested Functions
Kyle introduces more functions and how to nest them inside another. This is one of Excel’s most powerful abilities and Kyle wants to help you grasp the concept. This ability is good for not only academia, but also the job market.
Excel’s most powerful feature are pivot tables. Kyle introduces them and teaches the viewer how to manage them. This feature allows the user to view and pull data in a new way. This topic is advanced, but well worth knowing if you are working with a lot of different data in Excel.
Google Sheets
- Watch this video for help with Google Sheets
Instructor: Joey Stanley
Handout
Use this handout to follow along with Joey’s Excel videos
Data
*These datasets came from the Linguistics Atlas of the Gulf Seas and Cowlitz Country.
Instructor: Keith Knop
Handout
- Use this handout to learn about Open Refine.
Data
*OpenRefine is a free, and open source tool similar to Excel as in it can house your data along with cleaning, transforming, and extending it with web services. Keith goes through how to navigate, add, and clean existing data.
Instructor: Joey Stanley
Introduction to R
Learn R’s syntax, how to make variables, and basic functions. Learn to import multiple file types to be able to filter and extract portions of your data. Lastly where to go for help, both in R and on the internet. If you need assistance on downloading R and RStudio, here is Joey’s handout
Visualizations I: Introduction to ggplot2
This will cover some of the basics of visualization including the following topics: (1) general concepts relating to data visualization, software, and data types; (2) download and installation; (3) plotting two continuous variables as a scatterplot; (4) plotting one variable as a bar plot or a histogram; (5) plotting one continuous variable and one categorical variable as a boxplot or a violin plot; and (6) where to go for help with ggplot2.
Visualizations II: Customizing plots in ggplot2
We unfortunately do not have a recording for part 2 of ggplot2. If you are interested in some intermediate content regarding ggplot2, This handout will cover additional topics in ggplot2 that let you customize plot in various ways: (1) adding and changing titles and axis labels; (2) custom colors; (3) renaming and reordering things; (4) legends; (5) faceting; (6) themes; and a custom section on saving plots.
Building Interactive Webpages in R: Introduction to Shiny Part 1
This video covers some of the basics of the Shiny package built in R. We unfortunately did not get the second part recorded but everything for both parts can be found online. Since shiny is used for web applications and can be dynamic, Joey decided to make this tutorial a webpage so you can see shiny in action.
Communicating to your Audience with R Markdown
This will cover these introductory topics: (1) an introduction to the tool and why it might be handy; (2) the “narrative” or the non-code portion of the document and how to format it; (3) inserting code and how to modify code block; and (4) output formats and ways to modify how the final document looks.
Clean and Tidy Data: Tidyverse
We only have the audio for this tutorial, so please follow along with Joey with his handout.
Let us know if you need additional help or would like to see a different kind of tutorial in the future.