In the past few years, we have seen an increase in the demand for R – both from employers looking for skilled R-users and professionals looking to further improve their skills. Due to this supply and demand gap, there have been various teaching channels created in an attempt to extend knowledge of the language. Even with the abundance of R teaching material, we still face a dearth of qualified, skilled R users. The inability to differentiate self-taught data scientists from qualified personnel creates confusion for employers and difficulties for quality professionals to separate themselves from the rest.
R Consortium started a working group that has identified an absence of a system to certify qualified R professionals as a cause for this problem. As a response to this, the group is working to create a certification for R that will allow professionals and students to acquire fundamental skills and knowledge of the language. Creation of this certification also aims to help recruiters identify and assess the skills of potential recruits. This group will be driven by the needs of the current R professionals and data science recruiters. More information about this initiative can be found here.
In order for this working group to create a valuable certification, we encourage community feedback in this initiative. Your feedback will help the working group to evolve this certification to best serve the needs of the R community. Please respond to this survey to help in the creation of this certification.