3. Downloading R and R packages
Downloading R and R packages
R is a free statistical analysis program you can download from the internet. You can Google “CRAN R Project” and find your local R website (https://cran.r-project.org). You should download the latest version and select the version appropriate for your computer’s operating system.
R is regularly updated but you should only need to update the version you are using every year or so. Like most free software obtainable from the net, R is easy to install and un-install. If you do update R, it might best to uninstall the old version before downloading and installing the update – though I am not sure if this is necessary.
Once R is downloaded, you can open it and check that you have the all the packages you require installed so R can use them. For the kinds of analyses you will be using, you will probably only need the “stats” package which comes with the main R program when you download and install it. To check that you have “stats” launch R and go to the “Packages & Data” menu and then to “Packages Manager”. This will load all the available packages you have installed for R to use. Scoll down the list that pops up and check that “stats” is in the list and that the package is loaded. If it is not loaded, check the little box next to the package’s name. You can then close the Package Manager menu.
In the future you may want to conduct more complicated analyses that require you to download and install different packages. If you know what package you need, you can find the package of interest through “Packages & Data - > Package Installer”.