Independent Study to consolidate this week

Data Analysis 1: Core

  1. đź’» Set up the Virtual Desktop

    I very strongly recommend working on the University computers for this work. You will be using more specialised R packages than you might be used to. This is especially important if you often have difficulty updating and or installing software on your own machine, wouldn’t know what what version of R you are using or don’t realise there is a difference between R and RStudio. The uni machines always have up-to-date R and R packages and all the packages that appear in teaching materials. It is our responsibility to ensure everything works on here.

    You can still work from home by using the Virtual Desktop Service. The VDS allows you to log on to a university computer from your own computer. It means you can access all software and filestores. When using the VDS for R and RStudio, it usually makes sense to use other software - such as a browser or file explorer - also through the VDS.

    If you are confident in your ability to set up your own machine, you need:

    • to know the difference between R and RStudio
    • to use R 4.4 and RStudio 2024.09.0 Build 375 (“Cranberry Hibiscus”)
    • be certain you are actually using R 4.4 - it is written in the top edge of the console window. By default RStudio uses the latest version on R on your machine. However, windows users are able to change this to a “specific version”. You might have done that previously. Change it back using Tools | Global Options R version “Use your machine’s default 64-bit version of R”
    • to make sure you do the independent study where it tells you what steps you need to take to get packages (and versions that are unlikely to cause issues) used in the workshop

    It is possible to access all your files on your university account without using the VDS. For example, if you want to work on uni machines at uni and your machine at home. You can best do this by mapping a drive: https://support.york.ac.uk/s/topic/0TO4K000000lA5ZWAU/filestores. If you store everything on google drive you can also read/write to that like any other drive using google drive app.

    Even if you plan to use your own machine I really recommend you take the time to set the VDS up now while you’re not time pressured so you always have that option ready.