This online course will be delivered over two days using a combination of live lectures and practical sessions guided by course tutors. All live lectures will be recorded. The course will run from 9:15am to 4:30pm both days.

We strongly encourage active participation to ensure you get the most from the course, especially during practical sessions in break out groups. Please ask questions, engage with the course tutors and fellow participants, and complete feedback so we can continue to improve our offering.

By the end of the course participants should be able to:

1. create high-end graphical figures, using the ‘ggplot2’ package in R;
2. customise plot features;
3. add, amend and customise plot layers;
4. produce interactive graphs and display them online;
5. generate dynamic documents using R Markdown;
6. use R Markdown documents to produce pdf, html and Microsoft word reports; and
7. develop simple web applications using Shiny to present results in tabular and graphical form.

The course is intended for individuals with an interest in data visualisation, reproducible research and data science. The course topics apply to nearly all areas of quantitative research, but the course is focussed on visual presentation of data rather than statistical analysis methods.

It is assumed participants will have attended the Introduction to R course or have a similar level of experience with R and/or RStudio. This course is not intended for people who have never used R before.

This is a two day course with practicals and demonstrations to provide participants with skills in using R to visualise data, build dynamic reports, and develop web applications.

The course will cover:

1. basic and advanced R graphics: creating simple and advanced informative graphics using 'ggplot2' that include bar plots, histograms, scatter plots, density plots, heat maps and many more;
2. customise graphs: introduce geoms, stats, layers, scales, axes, legends, facets, colour themes, general themes, fonts and grid layouts;
3. interactive graphs: introduce the 'ggplotly' tool, used to produce web-based graphs where a user can interactively select, display and highlight visualised data points, lines, etc;
4. dynamic documents: illustrate how R Markdown can be used to create dynamic reports that incorporate descriptive text and statistical plots, with the code used to perform the analyses and the generate results for reproducibility; and
5. web applications: demonstrate how R can be used to develop simple web applications to display results or perform an analysis online.

This course is lead by Dr Aimee Hanson and Dr Sarah Watkins, senior research associates based at the Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol. Both have an extensive background in programming and data visualisation in R, which they use regularly for their own research applications.

To make sure the course is suitable for you and you will benefit from attending, please ensure you meet the following prerequisites before booking:

Before booking this course, please make sure you read the information provided above about the target audience and prerequisites. It is important that you have access to the relevant IT resources needed for the course and meet the knowledge prerequisites to ensure you can get the most from the course.

Bookings are taken via our online booking system, for which you must register an account. To check if you are eligible for free or discounted courses please see our fees and voucher packs page. All bookings are subject to our terms & conditions, which can be read in full here.

For help and support with booking a course refer to our booking information page, FAQs or feel free to contact us directly. For available payment options please see: How to pay your short course fees.

Participants are granted access to our virtual learning platform (Blackboard) 1 to 2 weeks in advance of the course. This allows time for any pre-course work to be completed and to familiarise with the platform.

To gain the most from the course, we recommend that you attend in full and participate in all interactive components. We endeavour to record all live lecture sessions and upload these to the online learning environment within 24 hours. This allows course participants to review these sessions at leisure and revisit them multiple times. Please note that we do not record breakout sessions.

All course participants retain access to the online learning materials and recordings for 3 months after the course. 

University of Bristol staff and postgraduate students who do not wish to attend the full course may instead register for access to the 'Materials & Recordings' version of this course: Further information and bookings.

95% of attendees recommend this course*.
*Attendee feedback from 2025.

Here is a sample of feedback from the last run of the course:

"I can't believe I've been a researcher as long as I have without using R Markdown. I always felt that it would be impossible to learn but it was made SO EASY in this course, and I know my science will be better for using it in the future! Even if other elements remain slightly out of reach (looking at you, Shiny), I know this one skill alone will greatly enhance my work.” - Course feedback, February 2025

"This was a very comprehensive course. The course organisers had clearly put a HUGE amount of work into preparing the materials. They provided a lot of useful information about how to produce and customise different graphics, so it was a very useful overview of a lot of material.” - Course feedback, February 2025

"I was also a big fan of having the breakout groups by level - this meant that our group (advanced/intermediate on Day 1 and then moderate on Day 2) could go at our own pace and ask questions as we needed.” - Course feedback, February 2025

"The course ran smoothly and to time, and was very well organised.” - Course feedback, February 2025

"Teaching was excellent. Sarah and Aimee especially have done an absolutely fantastic job! The practicals were the perfect level and all the materials really great. It was helpful to be in small breakout rooms for the purposes of asking questions, but glad we were left to work things through at own pace. I hope tutors didn't feel under-used, they were very appreciated!” - Course feedback, February 2025

"Excellent introduction to ggplot and ggplotly. I liked the breakout sessions as enjoyed being able to work independently at our own pace with a moderator present.” - Course feedback, February 2025

"We did have a lot of opportunities to practise plotting and make sure we really became familiar with the process. The R Markdown was not something I expected, but it seems very useful.” - Course feedback, February 2025

"The lectures and practicals were really useful and well organised. I now feel a lot more confident in using ggplot2 and RMarkdown. Also I think it's helpful that we get to choose which level of breakout room we want to go.” - Course feedback, February 2025

"The course tutors were knowledgeable with engaging materials and very useful resources to support future learning.” - Course feedback, February 2025

"Practical sessions, measured content suitable for the allotted time, good time management, knowledgeable tutors and moderators.” - Course feedback, February 2025

"The schedule for the day was good - and a blend of breakout rooms with more localised help really benefitted the learning experience.” - Course feedback, February 2025