COURSE OUTLINE

Due to the situation of health emergency we are living in Spain (and worldwide) as well as to the impossibility to clearly foresee when this situation will come to an end, the scientific and organizing committee of the BSSD has decided to cancel the BaRcelona Summer School of Demography this year. We look forward to overcome this dramatic situation as soon as possible and to organize a new edition of the BSSD next summer 2021.
The Barcelona Summer School of Demography (BSSD), based at the Centre for Demographic Studies (CED), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, offers a four-week course in R. The course is divided into four modules – one per week – covering three major strengths of R: statistical and demographic analysis, data visualization, and spatial analysis. Each module consists of 20 hours of teaching, combining theoretical lectures and practical exercises. Participants are welcome to apply for the entire course or any of the individual modules. Modules 1 offer an introduction to R for which no previous knowledge is required. For the other modules, basic knowledge in R is required. Module 2 focuses on data visualitation and the ‘tidyverse’ approach in R programming. Module 3 shows how to implement common demographic methods in R. Module 4 is devoted to spatial analysis and web-based mapping. For detailed contents on each module, please visit Schedule and Organization. Participation will be limited to 15 students per module. Participants will be selected on a competitive basis based on motivation and research interests. Priority will be given to early-career researchers (Master and PhD students), but applicants from more advanced stages are also welcome. Participants are expected to bring and use their own laptops with R and RStudio installed as well as to pay their own transportation and living costs while staying in Barcelona. Lectures will be taught in English. Deadline for application: 31 March 2020. Applicants will be informed about the results of selection process by mid April 2020. For further information, please contact bssd@ced.uab.es.
SCHEDULE AND ORGANIZATION
The BSSD will be held at the Center for Demographics Studies (CED), located on the Campus of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain. Lectures will be taught from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (theoretical lectures, combined with practical exercises).
MODULE 1: Introduction to R (29/06 to 03/07)
Instructor: Tim Riffe
Session 1 (Monday)
1) Introduction to R and RStudio
2) Using the editor: main characteristics of RStudio, packages
3) Data handling: import/export data to/from R
4) Tidy data
5) Fundamentals of ggplot2
Session 2 (Tuesday)
1) Tidy data wrangling
2) Data processing pipelines
3) Worked examples
Session 3 (Wednesday)
1) Function writing
2) Modularity
3) Using functions in pipelines
Session 4 (Thursday)
1) Conditional execution: the ‘if’ command
2) Introduction to for-loops
3) Combining `if` and for-loops
4) More complex functions
Session 5 (Friday)
1) Join operations
2) Group challenges
3) Review of the module
MODULE 2: Data visualization with R (6/07 to 10/07)
Instructor: Ilya
Session 1 (Monday)
1) Basic dataviz principles
2) Impressive dataviz showcasess
3) Tidy approach to data
4) {ggplot2} basics
Session 2 (Tuesday)
1) More advanced {ggplot2}
2) Colors in dataviz
3) Themes and fonts
4) Population pyramids and animation
Session 3 (Wednesday)
1) Useful types of dataviz
2) Dotplots – the most neglected and powerful type of dataviz
3) Heatmaps, equality-line, ggridges, treemap
4) Ternaty plots and ternary colorcoding
Session 4 (Thursday)
1) the basics of map projections
2) {sf} – the game changer in #rspatial, `geom_sf`
3) Mapping Europe with {eurostat}
4) Mapping the US with {tidycensus}
Session 5 (Friday)
1) dataviz challenge in teams
2) brief presentations by teams and discussion
3) course wrap-up
MODULE 3: Demography with R (13/07 to 17/07)
Instructor: Marie-Pier Bergeron-Boucher
Session 1 (Monday)
1) Basic demographic measures
2) The Lexis diagram
3) Rates, probabilities and proportions
Session 2 (Tuesday)
1) Life table
2) Life expectancy
3) The Human Mortality Database (HMD)
Session 3 (Wednesday)
1) Standardization of demographic measures
2) Rate decomposition (Kitagawa method)
3) Life expectancy decomposition (Arriaga method)
Session 4 (Thursday)
1) Population growth
2) Population models
3) The Leslie matrix
Session 5 (Friday)
1) Introduction to population forecast
2) The Lee-Carter model
3) Review of the module
MODULE 4: Spatial Analysis with R (20/07 to 24/07)
Instructor: Juan Galeano
Session 1 (Monday)
1) Basic data manipulation using dplyr
2) %>% the pipe function
3) Group your data and summarise
4) Tidy your data
5) Plot your data: ggplot2
Session 2 (Tuesday)
1) Read shapefiles into R
2) General manipulation of spatial objects.
3) Univariate Class Intervals
4) Color palettes.
5) Thematic maps (I).
Session 3 (Wednesday)
1) Conversion between projection systems.
2) The ggmap package.
3) Thematic maps (II).
Session 4 (Thursday)
1) Spatial Statistics
2) Neighborhood Matrix.
3) Spatial autocorrelation: Global and Local Indicators of Spatial Autocorrelation (LISA).
Session 5 (Friday)
1) Plot Raster Data.
2) Web-mapping: Leaflet and ggiraph.
3) Animated maps: the gganimate library
4) Review of module.