3 What are Packages?

Packages provide you ways of helping you manage your data or calculate some results. A package usually contains a group of functions, such as calculating an average of a group of numbers or completing a regression analysis. Sometimes packages build in data sets that you can use to help understand how to use the functions. One of the many advantages of R is that these packages are being constantly updated, as well as new ones created.

Some of these packages are included in the initial installation of R; others are available for download (and free as well). The latter are called user-contributed packages, designed by analtyics people who develop functions and share them with others.

Packages are to be used at the risk of the user. These packages make computations easier for the user so that they need not be recreated by you. Note that multiple packages may calculate the same quantity using different functions.

One package that I like is the psych package that has a great way to summarize the data. The describe() function provides different statistics with one command, like the average, the minimum, and the maximum.

Check out the LinkedIn Learning video on Installing and Managing Packages in the Getting Started video as part of the Learning R course.