Wrap-up: Where to go from here

Lecture 25

Dr. Benjamin Soltoff

Cornell University
INFO 3312/5312 - Spring 2026

May 6, 2026

End-of-semester logistics

Remaining assignments

  • Project 02

Build a simple data science stack

A digital cartoon with two illustrations: the top shows the R-logo with a scary face, and a small scared little fuzzy monster holding up a white flag in surrender while under a dark storm cloud. The text above says "at first I was like..." The lower cartoon is a friendly, smiling R-logo jumping up to give a happy fuzzy monster a high-five under a smiling sun and next to colorful flowers. The text above the bottom illustration reads "but now it’s like..."

Image credit: Artwork by @allison_horst

Posit Workbench

  • Access to Posit Workbench will end after May 17th
  • All INFO 3312/5312 materials remain available in your repos on GitHub
  • Any other work you have done on the server will not be accessible
  • Where will you go from here?

Software installation

Programming language

IDE

Reproducibility

To {renv} or not to {renv}

Benefits

  • Isolated
  • Portable
  • Reproducible

Drawbacks

  • It’s a pain to configure for every project
  • Some packages have issues installing via {renv}

Install some core R packages

# install the major packages from the course published on CRAN
install.packages(c(
  "tidyverse", "tidymodels", "devtools", "usethis",
  "colorspace", "janitor", "skimr", "tidytext", "styler"
))

# install a package hosted on GitHub
remotes::install_github(repo = "cis-ds/rcis")

Create a GitHub account

Configure Git

usethis::use_git_config(
  user.name = "Your name", 
  user.email = "Email associated with your GitHub account"
  )

Painless authentication with PAT

Personal Access Token

More info: Happy Git and GitHub for the useR

Setup PAT authentication

Create PAT

usethis::create_github_token(
  scopes = c("repo", "user", "gist", "workflow"),
  description = "<DESCRIBE YOUR DEVICE>"
)

Store PAT

gitcreds::gitcreds_set()

#> ? Enter password or token: ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
#> -> Adding new credentials...
#> -> Removing credentials from cache...
#> -> Done.

Create PAT

usethis::create_github_token(
  scopes = c("repo", "user", "gist", "workflow"),
  description = "<DESCRIBE YOUR DEVICE>",
  host = "https://github.coecis.cornell.edu/"
)

Store PAT

gitcreds::gitcreds_set(url = "https://github.coecis.cornell.edu/")

#> ? Enter password or token: ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
#> -> Adding new credentials...
#> -> Removing credentials from cache...
#> -> Done.

What have you learned?

Learning objectives for INFO 3312/5312

  • Implement principles of designing and creating effective data visualizations.
  • Evaluate, critique, and improve upon one’s own and others’ data visualizations based on how good a job the visualization does for communicating a message clearly and correctly.
  • Post-process and refine plots for effective communication.
  • Master using R and a variety of modern data visualization packages to reproducibly create data visualizations.
  • Work reproducibly individually and collaboratively using Git and GitHub.

Where to go from here

Online communities

Keep your skills fresh

Presentations on Saturday!