Reproducible workflows with Git

16 March 2026

Setting aside R for the week, this week we will learn to use git and GitHub to develop reproducible workflows and get our work available on the internet.

Reading

  • Hadley Wickham et al., R for Data Science.
    • Chapter 28: Quarto
    • Chapter 16: Factors
    • Chapter 17: Dates and times
    • Chapter 18: Missing values
    • Chapter 19: Joins
  • Jenny Bryan, “Excuse me, do you have a moment to talk about version control?,” PeerJ Preprints (2017) https://peerj.com/preprints/3159v2.

Assignment

  • Install Git if you do not already have it installed on your computer.
  • Practice data wrangling and visualization with R. You can:
    • Expand on your analysis of the SNiGB data in a Quarto document.
    • Start a data analysis project of your own based on data you have collected or found.
      • Create an RStudio project in your hist5444s26/ folder. Set up the project as described in Setting up RStudio for success.
      • What can you do with the data? What would you like to be able to do?
      • Reflect on what you have learned in a Quarto document and in your commonplace book.
  • Think about setting goals for the rest of the semester.

Activities

  • Getting familiar with the command line
  • Getting started with git
  • Working with git and GitHub in RStudio

Resources