useR! 2024

rainbowR is a friendly community for LGBTQ+ folks who code in R. We run monthly online meet-ups where participants chat and share their R work in a supportive environment. We also organise the buddy scheme, which randomly pairs members of the community, to encourage people to meet and connect. We have exciting plans for the future! You'll learn about what rainbowR does and how you can get involved, whether as a member of the LGBTQ+ community or as an ally, and hopefully forge new connections at the conference and beyond. We believe the whole R community benefits when that community is diverse and inclusive.

This presentation aims to introduce the R-Ladies Paris community, a local chapter of the global organization R-Ladies Global, which strives to reduce gender inequalities and enhance the visibility, participation, and recognition of contributions from underrepresented genders within the R community. We will discuss our strategies to bring ​​R enthusiasts together, fostering a collaborative environment where individuals can learn from each other. We will share insights on how to maintain an active presence to encourage member engagement. Moreover, we'll provide tips and pieces of advice on how we make our meetups accessible to connect with a broader audience. We will address the resources provided by R-Ladies Global to support the activities of chapters, which could serve as encouragement for you to embark on your R-Ladies journey in the future.

I am a female scientist working in cancer research. Working on my PhD project, I realized that I could not make a use of the huge data amounts I generate without proper coding skills. At that point, my journey into R began. Knowing absolutely nothing about R or any other programming language, I was trying to perform an analysis and get the final output that I aimed for. With a lot of help from our bioinformatician, we ended up with a peer-reviewed publication, summarizing our project and analysis. During these times, I often wished for guidance and support by community members who may be struggling with similar issues themselves. Unfortunately, this community did not exist in Salzburg. I continued my work and my learning process, but kept wishing for some R friends. Until finally, in January 2024, I launched a local R-Ladies Chapter in Salzburg. R-Ladies is a worldwide non-profit organization that promotes gender diversity within R Community by organizing educational and networking events. In this lighting talk, I would like to encourage everyone, in particular people of under-represented genders, to put aside their fear of coding and embrace the world of R.

Data and statistical modeling techniques are the backbone of any modern society, but this is not true in Africa. Only a few countries have used this notion. Having recognized this issue, it appears that a lack of use, awareness, and comprehension of these modeling methodologies has crippled our countries, as a lack of current and detailed information has left stakeholders reliant on obsolete data and information for decision-making. Based on the information presented above, it is time for African society to devote itself to the implementation and use of R programming, which we see as a game changer due to its open source nature. In this enlightening talk, the presenter will discuss the challenges Africa faces, particularly in data collection and analysis, and how R programming can help, as well as how the community can collaborate with African aspiring data scientists to help improve lives and future generations across the continent.

Unlock the potential of your voice! Join me for a quick exploration of why speaking at industry events matters specifically within our R ecosystem. Discover how sharing your insights not only creates a positive ripple effect but also empowers others to benefit from your experiences. From networking to personal growth, we'll delve into the transformative impact of sharing your story. I'll share insightful stats about the R conference landscape and offer actionable insights on becoming a speaker. Learn how to navigate the process and kickstart your speaking journey. Let's illuminate the path to a more connected and empowered R community together, where your voice becomes a valuable resource for collective growth.

The R Contribution Working Group (RCWG) was established in July 2020, in response to concerns raised at useR! 2020 about the sustainability of the community of contributors to base R, as well as the demographic diversity of this community. The working group is a collaboration between R core developers, groups focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as R enthusiasts from the wider community. This talk will delve into the key initiatives led by the RCWG, explore their impact, and outline future plans. Initially the RCWG focused on communication: engaging in social media, working on novice-friendly documentation and organizing events focused on people completely new to contribution, making particular effort to reach out to people from underrepresented groups. More recently, the focus has shifted to upskilling potential contributors and initiatives to directly support people in making contributions. Examples include R Contributor Office Hours and the R Dev Day being held as a satellite to useR! 2024.

It will come as no surprise to the reader that women are underrepresented in the R community. Anyone who has organised a conference will know the feeling of seeing the abstracts come in with a particular demographic making up most of the entries. What do we do at this point? Do we positively discriminate to put more women out there? Is that patronising? It certainly leads to being told “you’re only giving the talk because you’re a woman”, or “you’re definitely going to get accepted, you’re a woman”. To have your abilities as a scientist and presenter questioned like that is awful, but is it worth it to move towards equal representation? And how do you fight the imposter syndrome that it instils? There is no perfect answer to these questions, but I wondered, has anyone tried asking the women? I have been gathering the thoughts of some women in the R Community, and in this talk I’d like to present the big picture. Some are newer to the community, and some have been around a bit longer. How do their experiences differ? What help is out there for things like imposter syndrome? Interviewees include Dr Nic Crane, Dr Nicola Rennie, Dr Heather Turner and Dr Sarah Heaps.

The Rbanism community aims to empower urbanism researchers, students, educators and practitioners to use open-source software and related open-science practices effectively and with confidence. It raises awareness, stimulates engagement and builds capacity by demonstrating the benefits of reproducibility, automation and scalability. Rbanism was initiated in 2021 by a group of R users in the Department of Urbanism at TU Delft, and it has scaled up to an international community of 70+ members. Our mission is to cultivate scientific computing, data science, computational thinking and software management skills applied to urbanism. To that end, our activities include workshops, many of which are carried out as part of the Carpentries, challenges with prizes, and meetups. In addition to in-person activities, we organise online events open to our international community members. These various forms of engagement follow our commitment to inclusion and accessibility. The Rbanism community is supported by the Netherlands eScience Center, the Open Science Community Delft, as well as the Department of Urbanism and Central Library at TU Delft. Website: rbanism.org

As a global non-profit established in 2016, R-Ladies has more than 100k members from 233 chapters in 63 countries to support the mission of increasing gender diversity in the R community. Empowering local chapters is challenging as accessibility and awareness of communication methods, software choices, social platforms, and support avenues varies internationally. Join us for insights into our journey of developing a global technical and social infrastructure while fostering collaboration and growth and granting chapters the freedom to tailor their activities to local contexts. Walk away with practical technical and social strategies to empower and diversify your own data science communities based on learning from continuous feedback.

We report on a project where three older R packages for spatial analysis: rgdal for reading and writing vector and raster data and coordinate transfromation, rgeos for geometric transformations and predicates and maptools have been taken off CRAN on Oct 16, 2023 because their maintainer retired, and more modern approaches (e.g., sf and terra) had superseded them. To avoid a very large number of R packages that depended on one or more of these packages, directly or indirectly, being removed from CRAN, we took a number of steps. In this talk we describe the steps we took to minimize lasting damage to other packages on CRAN, and report on the lessons learnt. Over the course of the project the number of at-risk packages decreased from more than 550 to less than 100. Of the 70 or so packages still on an at-risk watch-list, about half were actively archived by their maintainers as outdated. We will discuss some key takeaways/pieces of advice for developers considering software retirement, and propose a mechanism of deprecating packages with a deprecation date, which could for instance show up as a NOTE when checking packages that use them.

Do you use R and want to help extend its global reach? Our talk on translating R is just for you! Translation involves translating R's messages, warnings, and errors from English into other languages, making it accessible to a global audience. Support for translation has been part of R since 2005, but it relies heavily on community contributions to provide the necessary translations and help keep up-to-date with changes in R. In this talk, we'll begin by providing an overview of recent efforts to facilitate community contribution, celebrating the achievements of translation teams at community events like R Project Sprint 2023 in coordination with the R Contribution Working Group and R Core Team. We'll then dive into the practical aspects of contributing to R's translations (via Weblate), including explaining how R's messages are structured and tips for translating technical terms. In addition, we'll offer valuable tips and tricks to streamline the translation process and our communication with the translation community. Join us on this exciting journey to make R accessible to all and discover how you can be a part of this global endeavor.