I would start here: http://www.burns-stat.com/pages/Tutor/spreadsheet_addiction.html
Then point the students to a basic tutorial about databases (or at least MSaccess). Or you can have them enter the data directly into R without using outside products. Some of the GUI front ends for R have spreadsheet like interfaces, or you can create an empty data frame with the correct column types, then use edit/fix to enter the data in a way that feels familiar to spreadsheet users, but prevents some of the major problems that come from abuse of spreadsheets. -- Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D. Statistical Data Center Intermountain Healthcare [email protected] 801.408.8111 > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:r-sig-teaching- > [email protected]] On Behalf Of Tyler Smith > Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 2:09 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [R-sig-teaching] data preprocessing resources > > Hi, > > I'll be teaching a grad course in multivariate stats for ecologists > (ordination et al.) for the first time this coming spring. One thing > I've discovered in my interactions with grad students is that they each > develop their own rather idiosyncratic approaches to data processing. > I've seen some really odd and weirdly illogical use of spreadsheets > since I started teaching last year. > > Do any of you know of good online or in-print resources to either use > in > my teaching or direct students to? I've come across bits and pieces > scattered in various online lecture slides and notes, but nothing > really > focused on this particular issue. > > I know this is not really an R issue per se, but it's much easier to > get > data into R if it is originally entered into a spreadsheet in a > sensible > fashion. > > Thanks for any suggestions! > > Tyler > > _______________________________________________ > [email protected] mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-teaching _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-teaching
