The document summarizes a workshop that taught participants how to use the R statistical software without writing code. R is a powerful tool for data analysis but requires coding skills, so the workshop introduced R-Commander, which has a simpler interface. Participants learned how to use R-Commander for data management, visualization, descriptive statistics, and basic statistical tests. Learning R-Commander was seen as beneficial for students, supervisors, and professionals doing data analysis and management.

1. Statistics made simpler
Learning to use health statistics software without writing code
“Currently there are so many different statistical programmes for the analysis of health data. The
“R” software is free and robust, being able to use it is a skill which will be beneficial for my
future research career and in advising and mentoring students.” Dr Kassahun Alemu PhD
supervisor from Gonder University summarises his experience of a recent Dagu organised
workshop.
On a daily basis researchers, students and data analysts are faced with daunting tasks of
analysing, visualising and interpreting vast amounts of data. To make this a little easier the Dagu
team, together with the Associate Professor Katarina Selling and Senior Statistician Jonas Selling
working on International Maternal and Child Health at Uppsala University, Sweden worked with
Dagu PhD students, staff from the Ethiopian Health Institute (EPHI) and partner organizations to
learn how to use “R” software in data analysis and visualisation. This specialized software is a
powerful and comprehensive tool to manage complex tasks, however is not without its
challenges for users. “R” is a programming language, which means users have to learn to write
code, a substantial threshold for many. The workshop therefore introduced participants to the use
of R-commander, which comes with a simpler user interface bridging the gap for users wanting
to use “R”, but without the time to learn to write code.
Figure 1 Dr. Katarina- lecture time
Figure 2 Dr Jonas -Lecture time
The main objectives of the workshop were for participants to learn how to use R-commander for
data management, visualisation, descriptive statistics, basic statistical tests and their assumptions,
and as an introduction to statistical models including their assumptions. For participants
currently doing their PhD the workshop came just at the right time. “I have not just learned how
to use R-commander, but have also learned more about statistics and interpretation of data. The

2. training will have a lot of impact on my PhD.” says Atkure Defar, Dagu PhD student and EPHI
staff.
Figure 3 Certification
The course consisted of a series of interactive lectures combined with computer labs. The
teaching was conducted in an interactive manner, encouraging participants to reflect by sharing
their own experience. Participants showed a lot of enthusiasm pointing out the benefits of using
R-commander for certain tasks. Girum, Senior Researcher remarked: “I will try to shift from
“SPSS” to “R-commander” for data visualisation.” The usefulness of the workshop and learning
to work with this software was moreover highlighted by Dr Dejene Hailu from Hawassa
University explaining how this would improve his ability to teach his students: “This workshop
will allow me to guide students, as well as improving my own data analysis skills for my
research.” Learning to master R-commander was clearly a benefit for students and PhD
supervisors alike, but also professionals working on data management, such as Hanna Hailu from
JaRco consulting PLC. “The most useful part of the training was to learn how to analyse data
sets through the software. Knowing this makes our data management better.”
Figure 4 R-workshop participants