In this course, you will learn to work within the free and open-source R environment with a specific focus on working with and analyzing spatial data. We will cover a wide variety of data and spatial data analytics topics, and you will learn how to code in R along the way. The Introduction module provides more background info about the course and course set up. This course is designed for someone with some prior GIS knowledge. For example, you should know the basics of working with maps, map projections, and vector and raster data. You should be able to perform common spatial analysis tasks and make map layouts. If you do not have a GIS background, I would recommend checking out the West Virginia View Introduction to GIScience class. We do not assume that you have any prior experience with R or with coding. So, don't worry if you haven't developed these skill sets yet. That is a major goal in this course.

Background material will be provided using code examples, videos, and presentations. We have provided twenty assignments to offer hands-on learning opportunities. Data links for the lecture modules are provided within each module while data for the assignments are linked at the bottom of this page.

After completing this course you will be able to:

• prepare, manipulate, query, and generally work with data in R
• perform data summarization, comparisons, and statistical tests
• create quality graphs, map layouts, and interactive web maps to visualize data and findings
• present your research, methods, results, and code as web pages to foster reproduceable research
• work with spatial data in R
• analyze vector and raster data to answer a question with a spatial component
• make spatial models and predictions using regression and machine learning
• code in the R language at an intermediate level