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R · Foundations
Turn an export you did not make into an answer you can defend.
What you’ll end up with
One finished R script. A few dozen lines that read the export, say what is wrong with it, fix each fault in code, total the money by region, draw the totals and write the answer out — runnable start to finish.
9
hours in all — about 5½ guided, 3½ on your own
6
sessions. Each designed to be completed in one sitting
Free
No payment and no card required.
Finishing gives you a completion record showing the work you built, and all three levels earn the Alongrail Certificate in R. See what you’ll build →
You don’t need prior experience with R in webR. There’s no payment and no card required.
From one raw file to a finished script
0180 min
Nothing installed: the file, and what R says about it
You can open R in a browser with nothing installed, get a file somebody sent you into it, have R tell you how many rows it really has, and take your script back out again before the page forgets it.
0290 min
Read the file honestly: what the export actually holds
You can ask R what every column really is and where the export is wrong, and come out with a written list of faults before you have fixed a single one.
03100 min
Fix it in code, not by hand: five faults, five lines, five proofs
You can repair a text column that is spelt several ways, turn a money column that R read as text into numbers, drop the orders that came through twice and the ones that never happened — each repair followed by the line that proves it worked.
04100 min
Ask it a question: a total by region, and what a missing value does on the way
You can total a numeric column across a repaired table, find out what a missing value does to a total before it does it to you, read the span of dates the file actually covers, narrow to a period, and produce one row per region with its money on it.
0585 min
Draw the answer: a chart somebody who was not there can read
You can sort a summary so the answer is the first thing anybody sees, draw it as a chart with a title and a labelled axis, and tell from the console alone whether the chart was actually drawn.
0690 min
Make it run again: a results file, and the same answer twice
You can write your answer out as a file somebody else can open, and prove your script reproduces it by running the whole thing from its first line in a page that has never seen it.
What you need before you start
A laptop or desktop
Sessions need a laptop or desktop. If you’re on your phone now, that’s fine. Enrol now and we’ll email you a link so you can pick up when you’re at a computer. R in webR runs in the browser, on Windows or a Mac.
Chrome or Edge
Alongrail runs in the browser too, in its own tab beside R in webR.
The course files
Everything you work with is in the download.
What’s free
The whole course: every session, both parts, the files, and your record. Alongrail charges nothing for it. No payment, and no card at any point.
The software
R in webR costs nothing for this course.
The data you’ll work with
Every file is invented — the companies, the people and everything in them are made up for the course, and the files are deliberately messy, the way real business data is. Cleaning them is part of the work.
Before you start
The course covers R in webR, in your browser.
- A desktop or laptop with a current browser — Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari — and no account of any kind; nothing is installed and nothing is signed into
- The address the software runs at: https://webr.r-wasm.org/latest/ — an ordinary web page that opens without a sign-in
- A folder on that machine you can download a file to and find again
- orders.csv, the Brackenhall export — the course hands it to you on its own files list; download it before session one starts
- orders.csv for Ravensworth, the second company, from the same files list, before the first independent run — both companies export under the same file name, so keep each in a folder of its own or you will upload the wrong one
- The ten starting scripts, also on the course's files list — one per company per session after the first. You only need one if you lose your own script, and the session that needs it is the worst session to go looking
Alongrail teaches the software and gives you a record of what you built, with a link to the work itself. What happens with it afterwards is yours. We don’t place people and we take no part in anyone’s recruitment process.
Enrol free and start now.
Sign in, confirm the one thing the course needs, and session 1 opens. No payment, and no card at any point.
If something goes wrong on the way, press “Something’s wrong” in the panel, or write to hello@alongrail.com — we reply within one working day.
Frequently asked questions
What you build
Open a file somebody exported, in a browser with nothing installed and no account made, and write the R that turns it into a number you can defend — then a chart of it, and a results file you can hand to the person who asked.
A script you keep: a few dozen lines of R that read one export of a wholesale supplier's orders, say what is wrong with it, fix each fault in code, total the money by region, draw the totals and write the answer out — runnable start to finish, on a file you have never seen.
How a session works
- Open R in webR
- Share your screen
- One instruction
- You do it
- It confirms it
- Next
You open R in webR and share your screen. Alongrail reads what’s there and gives you one instruction. You do it. It confirms the step landed, then gives you the next one. If something doesn’t match what you see, one button gets you back on track.
Guided
In the Fields list, tick Region. The chart fills in.
One field on the axis, one measure as the value.
then
On your owna different company’s data
Same job, a different company's files. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask.
Guided, then on your own.
The second part of every session uses a different company’s data, with the same kind of mess in different places. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask. It’s the work your record points to.
About 9 hours in all·about 5½ guided·about 3½ on your own
What you earn — the record, the certificate and a sample
Completion record
- Name
- Your name
- Course
- R Foundations — turn an export you did not make into an answer you can defend
- Completed
- The date you finish
- Project
- The script you built on your own →
- Skills demonstrated
- Reading a delimited export into R and confirming its size against the file it came from · Reporting what a file actually contains: column types, distinct values, missing values and repeats · Repairing text, numeric and duplicate faults in code rather than by hand, proving each repair · Summarising a table by group and stating what the summary leaves out · Drawing a summary so that somebody who was not there can read it · Writing results out as a file and re-running the whole script to prove it reproduces
What was built
A script you keep: a few dozen lines of R that read one export of a wholesale supplier's orders, say what is wrong with it, fix each fault in code, total the money by region, draw the totals and write the answer out — runnable start to finish, on a file you have never seen.
The 6 sessions, and when each was completed on their own
Each session was completed twice: once with step-by-step guidance on one company’s data, then on a second company’s data from a brief, with guidance only when asked. Every check passed on both. Alongrail records the sessions, the checks and the dates; the dashboard itself is the learner’s own, hosted where they chose.
A completion record for R Foundations, now. It names the course, the date you finished, the skills you demonstrated, and links the script you built on your own. It’s private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time.
The record is a description of work you did, not a claim about you. Anyone who opens it can see the work for themselves.
The Alongrail Certificate in R when all three levels are complete. Foundations is the first of three. Practitioner and Professional are in development, with no dates. See the track →
Your screen stays yours
It looks when you ask. Never otherwise. Images of your screen are not stored. What Alongrail sees →
Nothing you build is public until you publish it. Your record is private until you say so, and you can unpublish it at any time.
What’s R in webR?
R in webR is the software this course is built in. It runs in your browser.
You won’t learn it by watching hours of tutorials. You’ll learn it by building something real with it.
Who you’re building it for
Brackenhall Supply Co. sells office and workshop supplies to businesses across four regions. Somebody has pulled the orders out of the order system and handed you one file, and the sales lead wants to know which region the money is actually coming from before the next hire is signed off. Nobody has looked at the export. Nobody is going to. You have no licence, no software on the machine and nobody to ask what a column means. What you have is the file, a browser, and a question with a date on it. By the end you will have answered it, and you will have the script that answered it, so the next export can be answered the same way.
Your job is to build the script that answers it.
Do I need to know R in webR already?
No. The course assumes you’ve never opened it.
What if I get stuck?
Press the button in the panel and say what you see. Alongrail works out where you actually are and picks the instruction back up.
Why 9 hours, when other courses are 40?
Because the time is spent doing the work rather than watching it. About 5½ hours is guided; the rest is you building the same thing again on your own.
What does Alongrail see on my screen?
Only the window you choose to share, and only when you ask it to look. Images of your screen are not stored by Alongrail. What Alongrail sees →
Can I use a Mac?
Yes. R in webR runs in the browser.
What if I miss a week?
Nothing closes. The dates are there to help you keep moving, not to catch you out.
What’s the “on your own” part?
The second half of every session: the same work on a different company’s data, with Alongrail quiet unless you ask. Both parts are needed for your completion record.
Is it really free?
Yes. No payment, and no card at any point.
Who can see what I build?
Nobody, until you say so. Your record is private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time. What you build stays in your own files or account; where a step publishes something to the software’s own site, the step says so and says who can see it.
Where this course sits
R Foundations is Foundations in R. The track has three levels; each one you complete earns its own record, and all of them together earn the Alongrail Certificate in R. All the courses →