Instructor: Margherita Calderan 
Scheduled period: from 19 to 29 October 2026

Monday 19-10-2026, 9:00 - 13:00;
Wednesday 21-10-2026, 9:00 - 13:00;
Friday 23-10-2026, 9:00 - 13:00;
Tuesday 27-10-2026, 9:00 - 13:00;
Monday 29-10-2029, 9:00 - 13:00;

Registration for the course will be open from 5 October at 9am to 9 October at 2pm at this link

An Open Badge will be issued by the University of Padova at the end of the course: https://bestr.it/badge/show/3239

In academia, the open-source and reproducible software landscape is establishing itself as the most professional and advanced way of working. At the same time, using these tools requires skills such as basic programming knowledge and the flexibility to learn different languages and software. One of the most powerful and versatile languages in both academic and corporate settings is undoubtedly R. R is an open-source programming language with an extremely active community and a wide range of extensions that allow users to analyze data, produce documents, and automate complex operations. In this 20-hour course, we will start from the basics of R as a language, acquiring skills useful for understanding programming in general. We will then present the main specific features of R, such as the various object types and data structures, as well as more advanced aspects such as creating functions, so that participants can use the language independently. Programming aspects in R will also be introduced, which, once acquired, can easily be transferred to other languages and software. All topics will be accompanied by practical exercises, in-depth material, and tips on how to best organize and optimize the use of the software.
The course material and organization are available in the Github repository github.com/arca-dpss/course-R-2425
The main reference material for the course is also the book available online on Github Introduction2R.

Course syllabus:

1. Introduction to the R working environment
2. Introduction to the main data structures in R
3. Advanced operations and manipulation of objects in R
4. Introduction to programming in R
5. Developing a project in R and an overview of advanced language elements