edX Explore Statistics with R Review

Explore statistics with R is a 5-week introductory level course offered by the Karolinska Instetutet through the edX platform, covering the basics of R, statistics and using R for statistical analysis. The course covers 3 main topic areas in 4 weeks--R basics, getting and manipulating data in R and statistical tests in R. The 5th week consists of a final graded assignment where you follow along with research project conducted in R. Each week consists of a few short lecture videos followed by a series of graded quiz questions. The class awards a certificate if you achieve a total score at last 60% on the quizzes and the final graded assignment.


Explore stats in R offers some quality content, but it is too short constitute a complete intro to R or stats. The professor speaks clearly, explains concepts well and seems genuinely excited to be teaching the course. I noticed he seemed active on the course's discussion boards, which is nice to see. The quizzes were too few and a bit too easy: they generally tested conceptual knowledge and did not require the student to do much in R besides copy, paste and run code. As a course focused on statistical operations, it didn't teach basic programming concepts in R like control flow and functions. This course could benefit from having a bit more content each week and beefing up the homework exercises to force students to do a little bit more in R on their own. Extending the course by a couple of weeks would also give the professor time to cover some neglected topics like programming basics in R and more on data visualization. With expanded content this could be a great course, so hopefully they'll make some tweaks and additions and offer it again.

I give this course 3.5 out of 5 stars: Good.