Have you ever had an interest in learning or growing skills in R?
Founded in 2017 by Henry Paik, the Partners R Users Group was established to support colleagues within our healthcare system interested in building skills in this space. This group provides access to infrastructure (Rstudio server and Shiny server), training, and offline user group meetings. The Partners R User Group also provides access to the vast knowledge that exists in its many users. Since its inception, this group has grown into a community of more than 400 research scientists, clinicians for Clinical Research, analysts and administrators from across Partners Healthcare.
Henry is a Data Engineer on the Scientific Computing team in Partners Enterprise Research Infrastructure & Services Department. This group grew out of his deep expertise and belief in the value of R. According to Henry, “R is the perfect tool because data can be drawn from many different data sources to create reports, run statistical testing and data analysis. All your repetitive and mundane manual work can be automated through scripting and job scheduling. For example, when I was a data manager for a clinical trial, I automated the workflow to generate reports. As result, I could save up to 20% of time. That’s 8 hours a week!” Henry also mentioned “Data Science is undoubtedly the hottest career path now. Speaking of Data Science, there are two major branches – Python and R. While Python is an extremely powerful language, R provides more out-of-box solutions. I think R is easier to learn than Python, especially when you do not have computer science background. R also allows for great data visualizations.” The Partners R User Group grew out of Henry’s belief that our success in leveraging its power is best achieved through developing a self-sustaining community. Henry added “Our goal is to build and grow R community in Partners. We are still a young group and need lots of help in teaching, organizing, sharing and showcasing. We need help not only from R users but also from upper management. If you are interested, please let me know. Come and join us!”
Check out the Partners R User Group webpage to learn more about getting access to
- R through the Partners RStudio Server, R in ERISOne, and R with IDEA platform
- Partners R User Group Meetings
Do you have more questions about the R User Group? Join the discussion list.
This article first appeared in the Data & Analytics Connection Newsletter in August 2019.
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