• A simple web-based application for performing basic data analysis and statistical routines
• Built using R and Shiny
• Extensible modular structure
• Designed for a first statistics class student
• Assists in the learning of statistics rather than acting as a stand-alone deliverer of statistics education

Short answer: yes

• R is great, but requires students to have some knowledge/interest in programming
• JMP is powerful, but lots of functionality for intro stats
  • Software licensing issues
• New tools recently released to spark an interest in R
  • Swirl and DataCamp teach R programming
  • Project MOSAIC facilitates learning, but assumes knowledge of R
• Want students to focus on data analysis rather than fight with software

• Focused on aspects of the user interface (UI) and output that make it easy to pick up without training
• Minimal necessary functionality for an introductory statistics course
• Organized around specific tasks a student may perform in the process of a data analysis

• Fun, easy to use (available on the web)
• Interactive plots using ggvis

Ulterior motive: get students excited about programming

• By navigating about the user interface of intRo, students are creating a fully-executable R script that they can download and run locally
• Viewing their script change real-time within the application

• User interaction with intRo is split into bitesize chunks that we call modules
• Each module is a self contained set of R code that is dynamically added to the application at run time
• intRo can be easily extended by the addition of modules within the frame-work underlying the application
• Allows instructors/collaborators to tailor intRo to the needs of a particular course

• intRo was used last semester at Iowa State University in STAT 201
  • Homework assignments and labs used intRo to emphasize class concepts
• intRo is a supplement, not the focus of the class

• Data: OECD PISA Results in Focus report to assess the workforce readiness of 15-year old students
• Goal: Explore graphically and numerically how the students perceive academics and math
• intRo Tasks:
  1. Make a barchart of the variable Enjoy.Maths.
  2. Make a summary of the Enjoy.Maths variable. What proportion of these students agree or strongly agree with the statement "I enjoy mathematics"?
  3. Obtain a contingency table and mosaic plot of the relationship between Country and Enjoy.Maths. Print contingency tables with the Count and Column Proportion values.

Elements of intRo: 1) top navigation, 2) side navigation, 3) options panel, 4) results panel, and 5) code panel.

• Module creation package
• Server load
• Use in other classes

Modularity is a key feature of intRo, but module creation is currently:

• Undocumented
• Entirely manual
• Unnecessarily lengthy

Idea: R package (with associated Shiny app?) to automate creation of intRo modules

Limited testing has been done to assess how intRo handles heavy user load

• Dozens of students accessing app at once
• Simultaneous larger computations like printing results

More server resources may need to be devoted to handle this, particularly if intRo is more widely adopted

• We would like work with instructors to get intRo into more classes
• Module creation package will allow it to suit more curricula
• We welcome collaborators interested in extending intRo to submit pull requests on GitHub (http://www.github.com/gammarama/intRo)
  • Additional modules
  • Improvements and bug fixes