[R] [O/T] undergrads and R

[Ales Ziberna]

I will be also using R commander with undergrad students, who actually 
already have some experience with R, however they have been using it 
more as programing language than a statistical tool and I want to get 
them more familiar with this aspect of R.

First, when I had my first look at R commander, I really liked it, 
however, when I did a little more experiments, I found it quite 
frustrating at times, especially by the fact that when computing a 
certain statistics (for example mean), you can select only one variable 
at the time. Are there any plans to change this, so that a number of 
variables could be chosen? I would also prefer to have the variables 
sorted the same way as they are in the data frame and and not 
alphabetically. If this two (what I believe minor) things could be 
improved, I would find R commander much more usable.

Otherwise, I find it a grate package, especially when working with 
social sciences students.

Does anyone else have similar filings.

Best regards,
Ales Ziberna

Richard M. Heiberger pravi:
> This semester for the first time I have been using the combination
> of R, R Commander (John Fox's package providing a menu-driven
> interface to R), and RExcel (Erich Neuwirth's package for interfacing
> R with Excel).  The audience is the introductory Statistics class for Business
> undergradutes.  The short summary is that I think the combination works well
> for this audience.
> 
> I will be talking on my experience at the useR! conference in June.  I added
> several additional menu items to Rcmdr for our group.  I sent the January
> ones (prior to the beginning of the semester) to John Fox in January.
> I will send another batch of menu items, those constructed during the semester,
> as soon as the semester is complete.
> 
> The goal is to hide most of the programming from the students.  But not all
> of it.  I think it is very important for any user of a menu system to
> have at least a rudimentary idea of the programming steps behind the menu.
> Rcmdr supports this goal since it functions by generating R language statements
> from the menu selections and displaying the generated statements.
> For example, I will casually change the cex or ylim of a generated plot
> statement.  I post the script window (generated and edited statements) from
> each class to the course website.  I do not post the output window.
> 
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