R and Python for the Life Sciences (QBIO7001)
Course level
Postgraduate Coursework
Faculty
School
School of the Environment
Units
2
Duration
One Semester
Class hours
Lecture 5 Hours/ Week
Problem-based learning 6 Hours/ Week
5L 6PBL
Assessment methods
Examination, quizzes, practical skills assessment
Course enquiries
Dr Jan Engelstaedter (j.engelstaedter@uq.edu.au)
Current course offerings
Course offerings | Location | Mode | Course Profile |
Semester 1, 2024 (30/01/2024 - 23/03/2024) | External | External | Course Profile |
Semester 1, 2024 (30/01/2024 - 23/03/2024) | St Lucia | In Person | Course Profile |
Please Note: Course profiles marked as not available may still be in development.
Course description
This course will provide students with a thorough introduction to two programming languages that are widely used within the biological sciences: Python and R. No prior knowledge of any programming language is required. The course will be taught in a workshop-style manner over 15 consecutive days. Each day starts with an informal lecture interspersed with exercises, following which students will work on a range of small to medium-scale projects directly related to the lecture content. The first module will provide an introduction to the statistical programming language R, which will be followed by a module teaching programming in Python. Both modules will focus on data science task commonly encountered in biology and other life sciences. Topics to be covered in these two modules include basic syntax, data import, export and manipulation, flow control, statistical analysis, string manipulation and data visualisation. Examples and projects will cover a variety of real biological datasets and problems. The course concludes with an introduction to the Unix/Linux environment (including some shell scripting), version control using git, regular expressions and high performance computing. At the end of this course, students will not only be fluent in two important programming languages but will also have acquired an understanding of general coding principles that will enable them to read and adapt code in other programming languages. This course provides the foundation for all other courses within the Master of Quantitative Biology program that will use R and Python throughout.
Archived offerings
Course offerings | Location | Mode | Course Profile |
Semester 1, 2023 (30/01/2023 - 25/03/2023) | External | External | Course Profile |
Semester 1, 2023 (30/01/2023 - 25/03/2023) | St Lucia | In Person | Course Profile |
Semester 1, 2022 (31/01/2022 - 26/03/2022) | External | External | Course Profile |
Semester 1, 2022 (31/01/2022 - 26/03/2022) | St Lucia | Internal | Course Profile |
Summer Semester, 2020 (04/01/2021 - 30/01/2021) | St Lucia | Intensive | Course Profile |