Programming language courses.

Alison, the large free e-learning platform, has launched two new courses on popular programming language R.* Although R is sometimes seen as a simpler programming language than others, there is a steep learning curve to begin with as it uses a different syntax model to most common languages.

The first course, Introduction to R for Data Science, is aimed at people who have a basic knowledge of data science that they want to expand on. It explains how R is used, and teaches the data structures and types found in R. The second course, R for Data Analysis, moves on to more sophisticated forms of data manipulation, with a strong focus on identifying underlying patterns and predicting trends in data-sets.

Social entrepreneur Mike Feerick, Founder and CEO of Alison said: “The trend toward Big Data is unstoppable, making the ability to analyse and comprehend data a vital skill in many lucrative fields of employment. Business analysts in sectors from finance and banking to government and the public sector – and everything in between – can benefit from taking these free courses to expand their knowledge.”

In the US, the average salary for an R programmer is paid between $76,000-100,000, and in the 2014 Dice Tech Salary Survey of over 17,000 technology professionals, the highest-paid IT skill was R programming.

Eric Corbett, Course Publishing Manager at Alison, said: “At Alison, we believe in empowering young people by enhancing what they learn through their formal education with both the soft skills and hard skills needed to succeed in the workplace. Shockingly, in most countries, programming still isn’t taught in schools, despite its obvious value to governments and organisations worldwide.”

* The R language is widely used among statisticians and data miners for developing statistical software[6] and data analysis.

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