Remake workshop: Make-like declarative workflows in R

Please note that this course is oversubscribed.

Overview

The R community has developed modern tools that allow implementing computational workflows from data acquisition to report generation entirely in R. If the workflow is reproducible, it can be rerun with very little effort by collaborators, on a bigger machine, or by your future self, including when you notice that crucial data transformation oversight just two days before a deadline.

The remake and drake R packages support reproducible workflows that are flexible, efficient, and maintainable. In contrast to most other tools, these packages allow R objects (in addition to files) as targets or dependencies. If you change your code or the input data, only those targets that are affected by your recent changes are rebuilt. These features are very helpful when working interactively: you can develop a workflow from scratch, enhance and modify it step by step, and maintain reproducibility from day one until submission and beyond.

Audience

The workshop is addressed to R users who want to implement reproducible medium-sized workflows where all or most steps consist of pure R code.

Learning objectives

At the end of the workshop, participants should be able to:

• implement their own reproducible workflows with remake and drake
• migrate existing workflows to remake and drake

Prerequisites

Knowledge / competencies

Participants should have at least basic programming skills in R.

Technical

Participants are required to bring a own laptop with R installed. We will install all necessary R packages during the tutorial.

Application

Please note that this course is oversubscribed.

The registration fees for academics are 50 CHF, and for industry participants are 250 CHF. This includes course content material and coffee breaks.

Deadline for registration and free-of-charge cancellation is set to February 21, 2018. Cancellation after this date will not be reimbursed. Please note that participation to SIB courses is subject to our general conditions.

You will be informed by email of your registration confirmation.

Venue and Time

Irchel Campus, Universität Zurich.

The course will start at 9:00 and end around 17:00. The room will be provided to the participants in due time.

Additional information

Coordination: Mark Robinson and Patricia Palagi

You are welcome to register to the SIB courses mailing list to be informed of all future courses and workshops, as well as all important deadlines using the form here.

For more information, please contact training@sib.swiss.