Intro to R - Baltimore Data Day 2026

Thanks for being here! This activity is meant to guide you through some R fundamentals so you can get started on your data journey.

🔧 Installing R and RStudio

You will need to install R. RStudio is a development environment for running R. It comes with a lot of cool features.

• Download and Install R.
• Download and Install RStudio.

If you work on a Windows machine, you might also need to install R Tools.

🔎 Navigate RStudio

Locate the following in RStudio:

• Console. This is where code is run.
• Environment. This shows you objects R can work with.

Read more about the RStudio user interface here.

📂 Organize your files

We will create an “R Project” to stay organized. You can create many more later.

• Go to File > New Project…
• Select “New Directory”.
• Select “New Project”.
• Provide a Directory name, such as “Intro to R”.
• Pick a reasonable location, such as your Documents folder.

💻 Intro to R Activity

Now we will transition to the activities, which are actually in the code files!

• Download BDD.Rmd.
• Download This BNIA data about library cards. (source)
• Move the downloaded files to the directory you created above.
• Open BDD.Rmd in RStudio (File > Open File or simply double-click).

🏁 Wrap up

We’d love to hear what you liked/didn’t like about this workshop.

🗣 Give us feedback via Google Forms.