Summary and Schedule
This is a lesson about how to use the targets R package for maintaining efficient data analysis workflows.
| Setup Instructions | Download files required for the lesson | |
| Duration: 00h 00m | 1. Introduction |
Why should we care about reproducibility? How can targets help us achieve reproducibility?
|
| Duration: 00h 12m | 2. First targets Workflow |
What are best practices for organizing analyses? What is a _targets.R file for?What is the content of the _targets.R file?How do you run a workflow? |
| Duration: 00h 24m | 3. Loading Workflow Objects |
Where does the workflow happen? How can we inspect the objects built by the workflow? |
| Duration: 00h 36m | 4. The Workflow Lifecycle |
What happens if we re-run a workflow? How does targets
know what steps to re-run?How can we inspect the state of the workflow? |
| Duration: 00h 48m | 5. Best Practices for targets Project Organization |
What are best practices for organizing targets
projects?How does the organization of a targets
workflow differ from a script-based analysis?
|
| Duration: 01h 00m | 6. Managing Packages |
How should I manage packages for my targets project?
|
| Duration: 01h 12m | 7. Working with External Files | How can we load external data? |
| Duration: 01h 24m | 8. Branching | How can we specify many targets without typing everything out? |
| Duration: 01h 36m | 9. Parallel Processing | How can we build targets in parallel? |
| Duration: 01h 48m | 10. Reproducible Reports with Quarto | How can we create reproducible reports? |
| Duration: 02h 00m | Finish |
The actual schedule may vary slightly depending on the topics and exercises chosen by the instructor.
Local setup
Follow these instructions to install the required software on your computer.
- Download and install the latest version of R.
- Download and install RStudio. RStudio is an application (an integrated development environment or IDE) that facilitates the use of R and offers a number of nice additional features. You will need the free Desktop version for your computer.
- Download and install Quarto. Quarto is a program for authoring documents in a variety of formats using code. It is used in this workshop to generate a dynamic report.
- Install the necessary R packages with the following command:
R
install.packages(
c(
"conflicted",
"future.callr",
"future",
"palmerpenguins",
"quarto",
"tarchetypes",
"targets",
"tidyverse",
"visNetwork"
)
)
Alternative: In the cloud
There is a Posit Cloud instance with RStudio and all necessary packages pre-installed available, so you don’t need to install anything on your own computer. You may need to create an account (free).
Click this link to open: https://posit.cloud/content/6064275