Setting up R/Rstudio on DEECA computer

Before the workshop

You will need R installed on your machine. If your current R version is <4.2, it is a good time to update. R is the programming software that does the computations for your analyses. but using R is made much easier by using it through RStudio which is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment). Therefore, you will need to install Rstudio as well. Finally, you will need something called rtools to help install certain packages in R.

Note - If you are using a DEECA machine and and you do not have an open workstation then you may find it difficult to install R, RStudio and a range of R packages. It is recommended you have a workstation setting that allows you to download and install programs (like R and R packages). This is something you need to apply for through the DEECA IT service portal.

To install, the order of steps are as follows (for DEECA computers):

1. Install R go to https://cran.rstudio.com/ and do the following:

   • click “Download R for Windows”

     

   • click “base”

     

   • click ‘Download R-4.5.1 for Windows’

     

   • click the downloaded ‘R-4.5.1-win.exe’ to start install

   • when you get to install locations, install to ‘C:\Windows\Program Files’

     

   • accept all defaults along the way

2. Download the version of Rtools matching your R installation: https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/Rtools/

   • click on ‘RTools 4.5’

     

   • Scroll down until you see ‘Rtools44 Installer’ and click on it:

     

   • Click on the downloaded ‘rtools44-6104-6039.exe’ to start install

   • install to ‘C:\Windows\Data’ and accept defaults

     

3. Install RStudio: https://posit.co/download/rstudio-desktop/

   • click on ‘Download Rstudio….’ button

     

   • click on ‘RStudio-2025.05.1-XXX.exe’

   • install to ‘C:\Windows\Data’ like rtools and accept defaults

4. Open Rstudio as you would any other program to check that it opens. If so, move onto installing packages below

   

R Packages for Workshop

One of the strengths of R is that it is open-source and collaborators can contribute their own code in the form of packages. For our workshop we will be downloading some packages on the fly.

There are two packages: tidyverse and brms to download ahead of time (copy code below and paste into R):

install.packages(pkgs = c("tidyverse","brms") )

For newbies, click on ‘install’ button in the Packages tab in lower right. Then write in ‘tidyverse’ and click ‘Install’. Repeat process for brms package.