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Learner Reviews & Feedback for R Programming by Johns Hopkins University

4.5
stars
22,171 ratings

About the Course

In this course you will learn how to program in R and how to use R for effective data analysis. You will learn how to install and configure software necessary for a statistical programming environment and describe generic programming language concepts as they are implemented in a high-level statistical language. The course covers practical issues in statistical computing which includes programming in R, reading data into R, accessing R packages, writing R functions, debugging, profiling R code, and organizing and commenting R code. Topics in statistical data analysis will provide working examples....

Top reviews

EJ

Jul 11, 2016

Excellent course! I already knew a lot about R - but this class helped me solidify what I already knew, taught me lots of new tricks, and now I have a certificate that says I know `something' about R!

MR

May 11, 2020

Really interesting course. The interactive coding sessions with swirl are especially useful. Would be great, if you provided sample solutions for the programming assignments, in particular for week 4.

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4326 - 4350 of 4,720 Reviews for R Programming

By Shannon P

•

Apr 17, 2020

The videos aren't narrated by a robotic voice-over, which is good! Unfortunately, they are very simplistic and not actually that helpful at teaching R functions. The swirl package they have you use is actually a much better way to cover the source material, and I advise doing all the exercises. Unfortunately the programming assignments are very random and don't really apply what you have just been taught, so all in all I do not recommend this course.

By Vasilis S

•

Feb 18, 2016

This is NOT a step-wise introduction to R for the novice. Useful in many respects, but the uninitiated to the field need more time, slow increments in project difficulty and more thorough, step by step explanations. I think the designers of the course wrongly assume that ALL R programming should be taught in THIS course which is erroneous; it should be about laying the foundations, on which the student can then expand his/her R programming abilities.

By Sima S K

•

Feb 10, 2020

I found this course to be very poorly structured. Although the lecture material was interesting and engaging, very simple examples, functions and codes were presented in lectures and the assignments were completely at a different level. I spent hours researching online to be able to complete assignments. This should not be the case for an introductory course and I do have programming experience, although not in R. Very disappointing and frustrating.

By Michael P

•

Apr 24, 2020

I found that material presented in the course initially seemed useful. However, the programming assignments go far beyond what was presented in the learning modules and optional practices. I recognize that additional research is common in coding projects, but I found this major feature of the course to be unnecessarily painful and ultimately unhelpful. Only do this course if you absolutely have to. I believe there are better ways to learn R.

By David R C

•

Aug 28, 2019

The course is interesting, but is very focused on informatics and programming codes, it is not recommended for beginners. If you are looking for a course on statistical programming in R it is not this course. It is a good idea to give the manual for free, although some lessons are tedious and long. It also requires some previous handling of GitHub to complete it, for those of us who are not familiar with the environment is really complicated.

By Roland S

•

Jun 11, 2021

Do not attempt this course unless you have a strong foundation of programming.

Although the lectures and initial quiz sections are straightforward and step by step, once you get to the assignments, there is a massive leap where concepts and commands that have not been introduced in the lectures are required.

There is also no support or way of getting guidance apart from a blanket google search.

This is hugely dispiriting and demotivating.

By Lasse L F

•

Mar 4, 2021

I learned a lot from the course. The reason I only give it two stars is that the programming assignments are close to impossible for someone with no prior experience. I expected to be able to complete them since the data specialization indicated that beginners should be able to complete the courses. Overall, I learned a lot, but the programming assignments were a very frustrating experience that did not add to the value of the course.

By Gehad B

•

Feb 25, 2017

I passed this course with score 95% finished all quizzes, Programming assignments and swirl exercises. but it wasn't useful that much. the videos wasn't interactive, to much theoretical parts...less practical you can't solve the assignments depending on the tutorials you have to google for the answers and know how people can solve the problems.......I recommend if there will be a new version to put these points in consideration

By Paymon H

•

Apr 14, 2016

This is a tougher class than advertised. I essentially had to clear my entire week's plans to complete the first week's assignment, which was by far the toughest. There needs to be more testing on a variety of incoming skill sets. The lectures can also benefit from a recalibration, because the lecturer speaks way too fast for newbies and speaks fastest when explaining the most complex concepts. This makes it tough to learn.

By Rachel R

•

Jul 11, 2017

This is not an "R for beginners" course. Be prepared to spend a lot of time learning things on your own. The lectures don't prepare you very well for the quizzes and assignments. However, there is some useful information about R here. Any previous experience in another programming language will be an asset to you in this course, as you need to understand some programming concepts already to complete the assignments.

By KushkingLA

•

Aug 25, 2020

OMG, talk about throwing you in the deep end with weights on your feet. Holy Sh!t. Course 2 week 2, there would be no way a beginner programmer would get any of this pollution project. i must have spent 12 hours trying to figure it out. There were functions i have never seen, script no beginner would ever know. I do not know how long i can keep this up. Even swirl was over my head... skip(), skip()... BRUTAL!

By Karina N

•

Jul 9, 2019

I came in with not much experience in R and while I found the lectures and the swirl practice problems to be pretty helpful, the assignments were way too difficult for me to understand on my own. This was my first experience with an online course and while I knew I would be teaching myself, I felt stuck while doing some of the assignments and had to use google to help me with practically the whole assignment.

By Andres L

•

May 9, 2022

Course starts with a slow pace; then it escalates way too fast towards the end. The level of difficulty for someone without any background in programming is extremely difficult. Exercises given and lectures were not enough to complete assignments and quizzes. I can't replicate some of the problems or assignments on my own without looking for help or answers in other videos, lectures, or academic materials.

By Daniele D F

•

May 14, 2020

The course suffer the time passed form his first edition; it seems it is abbandon by his editors without improve it in the years. I think the course is not well focused on very important aspects of R programming; moreover the support material and the programming assignment are not well designed and documented, you need to train yourself on other site or in the forum to learn how to face up with assignment.

By Dylan B

•

Dec 7, 2017

Not a great course for beginners tbh.... it jumped a bit from topic to topic and all of a sudden certain jargon was used making it difficult to follow some parts of the lecture. Course work does not match with lectures and SWIRL. It's frustrating that you can't apply the things you've learned in the lectures and apply it to the course work... this should be greatly improved. Only really good thing is SWIRL

By Agustin G

•

May 22, 2016

This is not an introduction to R programming... this is more in-depth than just introduction... in week 2 we're asked to compute and program to read multiple files at once with very specific functionalities!... this is not an introduction to R programming whatsoever... also it requires a lot of user reading from other sources i.e. google, stack overflow... etc... I don't recommend this to newbies

By Patrick W

•

Aug 17, 2020

The course content and swirl online assignments are at the beginner level, but I feel the assignments are above the beginner's level. The assignments do not align to the course content and the forum has little value added due to the congestion with people asking for assignment reviews. Recommend stating in the course content the appropriate section in the book (for those who buy the book).

By Silvia B

•

Jan 11, 2021

The course itself is not bad, even if many materials are quite incomplete and lack more detailed explanations. Morever, I found some tasks way too complicated if compared to the lecture contents. I would implement the course by structuring it in a way that the students can practice more through easier exercises right after each lesson. Nonetheless, I partially appreciated this course.

By Heather J

•

Mar 31, 2021

I have a Masters Degree in an unrelated field, however, I consider myself intelligent and this was very difficult from the beginning to understand. It may be because I have no experience in either coding or R, but I was completely lost. I was planning on completing the Data Scientist Track, but have decided to go back to the basics and discontinue Coursera at this point.

By Yan Z

•

Jul 15, 2017

The workload and the structure of the course was vastly different from the previous session. I had a very hard time to follow and to keep up with the pace at times and had to play catch up often. I wish there were more exercises to help the students familiarize with core functions and concepts instead of throwing them into the deep end and wait for them to "grind it out."

By Stefani D V

•

Jun 13, 2018

Las evaluaciones no tienen el mismo nivel que las clases. Se ven temas en los videos para que a la hora de hacer el examen se introduzca (breve y muy pobremente) otras funciones y estructuras que nunca se mencionaron antes. Durante los videos se muestras funciones que se ven hasta semanas mas tarde. No recomiendo el curso. Aprendi mas por medio de los modulos de swirl.

By Laura N M

•

Jul 30, 2020

I'm finishing the course happy due to the certificate, but I am also very frustrated. The assignments are very unfair when compared to lecture contents. If you don't have any previously knowledge in R, it is very difficult to conclude the course. In addition, the auxiliar materials are in the week forum, and not as obligatory readings. I am very upset and frustrated.

By Aditya R

•

Jul 10, 2020

I do not recommend this course to a complete beginner. There is a huge gulf between the coursework and assignment, I spent countless hours in solving the assignments and eventually had to take help from the internet. The theory part of the course is also taught very dry, where the professor is just reading lines in the slides. I regret subscribing for this course.

By Abhishek R

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Mar 30, 2021

The questions are not thoroughly explained there are some functions used in between questions which are not explained before but they are used in examples. Takes a lot hardwork for one to learn because we have to search each and every function by ourselves please try to explain even a point used between the examples it will be much easier to understand thank you.

By Paul T

•

Apr 25, 2020

While the information provided in the lectures was helpful and instructive, the programming assignments demanded far more information and skill than was provided by the class. This could be rectified by adapting the lectures to reflect the skills necessary for the programming assignments, or adapting the programming assignments to the skills presented in lecture.