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More and more programmers are learning the R programming language to become a Data Scientist, one of the hottest and high paying technical jobs on the planet.
Even though I am from the Python camp, when it comes to choosing between Python and R for Data Science, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence, mainly because of the awesome libraries like TensorFlow Python offers, I had tried R for a short time.
If you are also in the same boat and want to try or learn R programming for Data Science and Machine learning purpose and looking for some awesome free courses to start your journey then you can take some ideas from this article.
In the past, I have shared some machine learning courses on Python and today I am going to share some of the free courses to learn R programming language as well as Data Science and Deep Learning using R.
Btw, for those, who are not familiar with R, it's a programming language and a free software environment popular among statisticians and data miners for developing statistical software.
R burst into the scene with its powerful support for stats (linear and nonlinear modeling, classical statistical tests, time-series analysis, classification, clustering, ...) and graphical techniques, but in recent years, it has gained a lot of popularity among Data Scientist and Data minors.
Along with Python, R is the second most popular language to learn the new world of Data Science, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Artificial intelligence.
10 Best Free and Paid R Programming Courses for Data Scientists and Programmers
When you look for free R tutorials and courses, you will find a lot of courses but most of them are neither complete nor up-to-date. There are very few good quality courses and tutorials that are freely available.
This article is a collection of both free and paid R programming courses. I compiled this list for learning Data Science and Machine learning with R but this list is equally useful for people learning R programming for statistics and graphics purpose, which is another strength of this awesome programming language.
Anyway, without any further ado, here is my list of some of the best, free online courses to learn the R programming language.
Here is the list of best online courses to learn R Programming from Udemy, Coursera, and edX to learn this useful skill online. These courses have been created by experts and trusted by thousands of developers around the world. They are also very affordable, especially the R programming courses from Udemy which you can buy for just $10 on Udemy sales, which happens regularly.
1. R Programming A-Z™: R For Data Science With Real Exercises! (Udemy)
This is the best R programming course on Udemy and created and delivered by none other than Kirill Eremenko and his SuperDataScience team, which have created the best online courses on data science, and Machine learning on Udemy.
To complete this course you just need to have some high school mathematics level. It is for anyone interested in R programming, Data Science, and Data Analytics, or any people who are not that comfortable coding but who are interested in Data Science and want to apply it easily on datasets.
This course has been designed by two professional Data Scientists that will teach help you learn complex theories, algorithms, and coding libraries in a simple way.
By the end of the course you will be able to:
- Learn Programming in R and R Studio
- Learn how to build and use metrics in R
- Practice working with statistical data in R
- Understand the Normal distribution
When you buy it, you instantly have life access to 10.5 hours of video, 6 articles, and 38 downloadable resources.
2. R Programming for Statistics and Data Science 2023 (Udemy Best course)
This Udemy course meant to learn the fundamentals of programming in R has a lot of resources and support for beginners. The tutorial will be fun for you if you like Star Wars or Pokémon because some examples are based on them.
Here are things you will learn in this course:
- How to work with R's conditional statements, functions, and loops
- Getting your data in and out of R
- Understand and carry out regression analysis in R
- Learn the fundamentals of statistics and apply them in practice
- Systematically explore data in R
- Build your functions in R
The course has a lot of support documentation, it has a total of 38 articles and 34 resources. All explained in less than 7 hours of videos.
3. Statistics with R by Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel (Coursera best Course)
In this complete course, you will produce a portfolio of data analysis projects from the Specialization that demonstrates mastery of statistical data analysis.
Will making it you will learn:
- How to analyze and visualize data in R, creating reproducible data analysis reports.
- Demonstrate a conceptual understanding of the unified nature of statistical inference
- Understand natural phenomena and make data-based decisions performing frequentist and Bayesian statistical inference and modeling to communicate statistical results correctly.
- Critique data-based claims and evaluated data-based decisions, and wrangle and visualize data with R packages for data analysis.
The course is meant for dedicating to it 3 hours a week for 7 months, but you can adapt it however you want it. This course is offered by Duke University.
And, if you find Coursera certifications useful then you should also join the Coursera Plus, a subscription plan from Coursera which provides you unlimited access to their most popular courses, specialization, professional certificate, and guided projects. It cost around $399/year but its complete worth your money as you get unlimited certificates
4. Statistics for Data Analysis Using R by Sandeep Kumar (Udemy)
This course is meant for beginners with some programming experience and knowledge of advanced mathematics like statistics. It first teaches the aspects needed of mathematics and statistics and then it applies it to the R language. The tutorial is a combination of theory and practice.
During the course, you will see the following points:
- Learn the basic statistical concepts
- Application of these concepts using R Studio.
- Mastering some statistical concepts and techniques.
- Probability Distributions - Normal, Binomial and Poisson
- You will learn R programming from the beginning level.
The course includes lifetime access to 12,5 video hours, 13 articles, and 36 resources available to download.
5. R Programming by Johns Hopkins University
This is one of the best and awesome courses to get a general overview of the R programming language in Coursera and I strongly suggest you go through this course before starting with any other course.
Like many Coursera courses, this is also free if you just want to learn and explore but you need to pay if you want a certificate as well. It won't take much time to finish and you will learn both the historical background of R as well as where does it stand now.
This course will make you familiar with the R programming language, its terminology, features, syntax, and other stuff.
Link to Join the course : R Programming by Johns Hopkins University
6. Data Science: R Basics from Harvard University (edX best course)
This course taught by Rafael Irizarry is meant to build a foundation in R and learn how to wrangle, analyze, and visualize data. It will introduce you to the basics of R programming.
Based on some real-world datasets about crime in the United States. You will learn the R skills needed to answer essential questions about differences in crime across the different states.
Here are the key skills you will learn:
- The basic R syntax
- R programming concepts such as data types, vectors arithmetic, and indexing
- Performing operations in R including sorting, data wrangling using dplyr, and making plots
- Learn Data Analytics, Data Science, and Statistical Analysis
The course is free to enroll in and in the end, you can buy the certificate spelled by Harvard if you want it.
7. R Basics --- R Programming Language Introduction
This is another free R programming course from Udemy and perfect for learning R programming from scratch.
The course contains more than 4 hours of content and 2 articles. Its step-by-step approach is great for beginners and Martin has done a wonderful job to keep this course hands-on and simple.
You will start by setting up your own development environment by installing the R and RStudio interface, add-on packages, and learn how to use the R exercise database and the R help tools.
Link to join the course - R Basics --- R Programming Language Introduction
After that, you will learn various ways to import data, first coding steps including basic R functions, loops, and other graphical tools, which is the strength of R
The whole course should take approx. 3 to 5 hours to finish, and there are exercises available for you to try out whatever you have to learn in R. You will also get access to the Martin Code (The instructor) is using for the demos.
In short, one of the best free courses to learn R programming in depth.
8. Learn Data Science With R
This is the R programming course which will introduce Data Science with R. It has over 8.5 hours of material and touches most of the R concepts which are useful for Data Scientist.
You will learn the basics of Data Science like what is Data Science, data types, Vectors, Factors, List, Matrices, Data Frames, and Reading Data from files, Oracle Data using RJDBC, RODBC, and ROracle.
The Instructor Ram Reddy is a Data scientist himself and founder of RRITEC, a company dedicated to helping scientists better understand and visualize their data.
Link to join the course - Learn Data Science With R
Though the course is good in terms of understanding fundamentals of both R and Data Science, it lacks some real-world examples and business scenarios, which you can find on @kiril Eremenkoon's R Programming A-Z™: R For Data Science With Real Exercises!course.
If you can spend a couple of dollars then that is the best resource to learn Data Science with R. You can grab this course for just $9.9 which is fully worthy of your money.
9. Learn R for Business Analytics from Basics
Apart from Statistics, Graphics, Data Science, and Machine Learning, R is also growing on the Business Analytics platform. It's possible that R may become one of the most used Business Analytics tools in nature future.
It is giving strong competition to giants like SAS, SPSS, and other erstwhile business analytics packages.
If you are someone who wants to learn Business Analytics and want to leverage R's capability then this is the perfect course for you.
As the instructor says this course is designed specifically for someone who knows the basics of Business Analytics and wants to learn the implementation of those skills on the R platform.
Link to Join the course: Learn R for Business Analytics from Basics
In this course, you will learn how to download and install R programming packages, IDE like RStudio. You will also learn how R can be leveraged in Business Analytics.
The course is also hands-on and you will learn how to import Data in R and perform exploration and transformation activities, perform bivariate analysis and plot charts in R to understand data distribution and run correlation and regression in R to analyze model results.
10.R, ggplot, and Simple Linear Regression
This is rather old but one of the most popular free R programming courses on Udemy which will teach you Data Science with R.
In this course, you will learn how to start with R programming and use the excellent graphics package for R, ggplot2. Along the way, you will also learn Data Science concepts like the basics of simple linear regression.
There are no prerequisites, so anyone interested in R coding, ggplot, or data science and join this course.
The course starts with the installation of R and RStudio and then explains R and ggplot skills as they are needed when you progress toward an understanding of linear regression.
Link to join the course - R, ggplot, and Simple Linear Regression
That's all about some of the best free and apid courses to learn R Programming language, particularly for Data Science and Machine learning. It's true that many programmers are learning R for just those two reasons, R has other advantages as well, particularly on statistics. If your job involves a lot of statistics and graph work, R could be a good tool in your arsenal.
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Closing Notes
Thanks, You made it to the end of the article ... Good luck with your R Programming journey! It's certainly not going to be easy, but by following this roadmap and guide, you are one step closer to becoming the Data Scientist you always wanted to be.
If you like this article, then please share it with your friends and colleagues, and don't forget to follow javinpaul on Twitter and of course here on dev.to!
