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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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3901 - 3925 of 4,720 Reviews for R Programming

By Xue S

•

May 28, 2020

The course requires a lot of commitments from the learners. The videos were comprehensive but I often felt I wasn't sure why I was learning certain things. The swirl practices were very useful. It's the difficult coding assignments that made me realize why I was learning all those things in the videos. I felt quite a big sense of achievement after completing the final assignment, but I have to say it was not an easy learning experience.

By Afia I

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Jul 12, 2020

Very challenging course. Very difficult for those who are completely new to programming. It's not a good course if you don't have any prior knowledge of programming. The assignments were totally irrelevant to the lectures. You can't apply the knowledge that you gained from the lectures to the assignments. But, personally I had fun solving the assignments but that's only because I have some experience with programming beforehand.

By Angie M

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Jun 13, 2020

I am a beginner in R but I have done programming in college many years ago. The structure of this course needs more guided practice, specially with lexical scoping and the apply functions. I was able to complete Week 4 assignment using what I've learn without using any apply functions. The discussion boards were really helpful when completing the programming assignments because the professors explain them further there.

By Marnel A R

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Oct 30, 2020

The contents of the video lectures were sufficient for beginner level. However, the expected outcomes/codes are for intermediate-level R users. I did not expect that the assignments (especially week 4) will require sufficient knowledge on some codes (which were not really directly taught in the videos). The course's expected outputs from learners did not really level off with the contents of the video lectures.

By Androniki P

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Feb 2, 2016

If you are a beginner, this course's assignments will be quite difficult to solve but not impossible. Nevertheless, the course will give you the incentive to try and learn on your own, with the help of Rforums, the Coursera discussions, Google etc. I would appreciate it if some things would be explained in more detail. A beginner most definitely needs more time to spend on the course than the hours estimated.

By Yong H C

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Aug 9, 2017

The course was interesting and I sure did learn a lot about the R but it wasn't as "beginner" course as I thought. As a person who did not have any previous knowledge regarding computer programming it was quite challenging for me to keep up with the course. I would recommend learning the basic structures and methods of R Programming before taking this course if you are not familiar with computer programming.

By Justin z

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Apr 13, 2017

This course is too easy and more like a user manual, I wish there are more "Why" or "principles" inside. because the most important thing is to know "why". In my eye, "functional programming Principles in Scala" is this kind of real course that after taking it (it is not my priority right now so I will delay to finish it for a while). I can get the sense of the most important feature of a new language.

By G S

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Jul 21, 2020

There is a wide gulf between the lectures and the exercises presented on Swirl and the coding needed to pass the assignments. So much so that I didn't have to tools to approach the assignments with what I feel comfortable using. This is a huge detriment to the learning objectives of the course.But i still enjoyed many parts of the course as i got to learn something very new to me. I enjoyed Swirl too.

By Deleted A

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Jun 14, 2017

The videos and swirl (programming practice) are really good. The homework assignments seem like they could be really great, but the topics they cover don't really coordinate with the lessons for the week. I found myself spending significantly more time Googling and watch YouTube videos, rather than using the provided course materials, in order to scrap together (very messy) homework solutions.

By Neil J

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Jul 23, 2016

I really do not like the R language, I think it is sloppy and inconsistent. This class did ok teaching the basics of R, but it did not do anything toward teaching testing of R code (a key part of writing code!), best practices for modularization and factoring, and so on. In other words, it teaches you how to write R code that kind of works, but does not teach you how to write good code in R.

By Kevin C B C

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Dec 10, 2017

This was a very difficult course for me. Since the instructions for the programming assignments were very hard to understand. I referred to many sample codes in stackoverflow, and GitHub, and initially I was confused, but after many attempts to model my code from the samples I saw, it made a little more sense for me. I guess I really need more practice on the syntax, and commands of R. :)

By John M

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Sep 28, 2021

Lots of places where the lecture drones on with lists of functions in R with no context, and only occasional examples. Hard to follow, really, and I find myself tuning out. So, arriving at the first quiz I realize I have no clue how to do half the stuff, and go back over the videos only to be struck by exactly the same droning, listing of functions without context that have no saliency.

By Terri L E

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Mar 24, 2016

Learning R is very interesting and applicable. It is something I plan to continue, but not in the specialization offered here. The main reason being that the difficulty of the assignments seemed far beyond the material presented in the lectures. It could be that relevant examples on using applicable functions to aid in completing assignments were not presented in the lectures.

By Sean D

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Nov 20, 2016

The course teaches you very valuable basic R programming skills. It is definitely good for the beginner. Unfortunately the lectures and course materials do not adequately prepare you for the programming assignments which is frustrating and time consuming if you actually want to write the code required and not cheat.

The structure and functionality of Coursera itself is excellent.

By Rishi W

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Aug 31, 2020

I felt as though there was a large disconnect between the material presented and the programming assignments. It took much longer than expected to complete the assignments and required further research on my behalf. This course is a good starting point to build a foundation in R, though I will most likely be expanding that with other online learning courses to feel comfortable.

By Владимир С

•

Apr 20, 2020

This course has huge difference between what is taught in it (theory+practice in swirl) and than required in programming assignement!

no expanations almost of anyting what is required to write required code!!!

I strongly recommend to update this course structure - to explain step by step how to write program code, and give assignments which will be the same what is taught!

By Leo M

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Jul 11, 2017

Even after doing the swirl exercises, I felt as if some of the lecture material didn't have great enough context for me to completely grasp some of the concepts. It just felt like some of the material was all over the place at times and when it came down to doing some of the quizzes, I spent more time hunting down information that I did actually learning the material.

By Vaibhav m

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Oct 21, 2019

course videos and coding assignment are disconnected.

if someone like me have no prior coding experience than better avoid taking the course. first learn R then enroll.

many concepts are skipped in R.

hope this course is upgraded as standalone course for R from beginner to expert. I am thinking to return to the course once I fig out R from internet than continue

By Ivan P

•

Jan 10, 2020

I've found course extreamly usefull. But I have strong software background and easy get difucult topics. For the beginner it would be challenging. Also there is a lack of info about statistics used in lectures, quizes and assignments. A lot of staff was done without understanding. Also there are significant amount of mistakes in subtitles for lectures.

By Graziella G

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Jul 21, 2020

By the end of the course I felt I had learned a lot, but it was mostly from researching material online and in other books, as the material covered in the the lectures was very basic.

The assignments were interesting and challenging and the mentors and experienced people putting comments and support material on the discussion forum were very helpful.

By Eric M

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Feb 12, 2017

Feels like there is an extreme disconnect from the tutorials/lectures and the programming assignments. The programming assignments, were at times, rather difficult and had little to do with the lectures from that week. Overall I feel like I have a decent base in R, however I still feel like a lot of concepts were lost/not explained thoroughly enough.

By MASROAF S S

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Sep 21, 2020

This course will dive you into the deep understanding of R from the very basic level. However if you do not have any prior programming experience, then think twice before enrolling in this course becacuse the programming assignments are too much difficult for the beginners. Overall the course is very interesting except the programming assignments.

By Norma F V

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Sep 25, 2020

I think there is an enormous gap between the lectures and the assignments. I would never be able to do the assignments without help. I think the course content is excellent, I learn a lot, but I miss assignments at a level that the students can apply what they have really learned. A step further than swirl, and behind the current Assignments

By Justin S

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Aug 28, 2021

Decent introduction, but the projects are not explained well and you will be forced to Google and look at previous students' work for ideas if you have no background in Data Science. The lectures were also recorded somewhat poorly with not as much editing as they should have. At the same time, I did learn a lot and am excited to keep going.

By Alexander S

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Jul 1, 2019

The content is good as far as an introduction goes but I'm not sure that I actually learned what I signed up to learn. I completed all the readings and viewed all the lectures ( a few multiple times) but still had difficulty completing the assignments. I felt unprepared for each of them despite their not having a high level of difficulty.