R Consortium News #1 – Q1 2022 – Our first newsletter, a view on 2022
What’s happening in the R Consortium?
Our first newsletter!
The R Consortium is proud to present its first newsletter. Each quarter, you will find the latest updates on our members’ activity, reminders of upcoming events we suggest you join, useful material to make the most impact around you, and much more. We hope you will enjoy reading it! In case you have suggestions for our next newsletter, feel free to let us know: [link to feedback form]
Our plans for 2022
Plans for 2022 fall into two major categories: building out the structures that will enable the R Consortium to grow, and proactively seeking companies that we would like to see join the R Consortium. The first category includes implementing a new grant management system, focusing the ISC on technical infrastructure projects and asking the Marketing Committee and IDEA diversity working group to take the lead on social infrastructure. The second category includes exploring additional opportunities where ISC working groups might add value, and working more closely with member companies and partners to engage in industries beyond Pharma and Healthcare.
December 10, 2021 Members Meeting
The December Members Meeting was a chance for employees of R Consortium member companies to get a look into the inner workings of the R Consortium. There were updates from the working groups and top level projects and a review of some of the major accomplishments from the past year. A major focus of the discussion was a discussion of how member company employees could engage in R Consortium activities. The video of the meeting is available on YouTube.
Working groups updates
| Working Group | Topic | Description | For more information |
| R/Business | R Means Business | The R/Business working group is building out resources to support the use of R for business applications. Their current focus is on Accounting applications. Current work includes an audit task view, workshops, a book on R/data science for accounting, and a general ledger package. | info@r-consortium.org https://github.com/RConsortium/RBusiness |
| Working Group | Topic | Description | For more information |
| R Certification | Clinical Programming Teams need multi-language skills | The R Certification Working group is building out the curriculum of R and SAS skills that statistical programmers working in a multi-language shop would need to master to be an effective team member. | info@r-consortium.org https://github.com/RConsortium/R-Certification-WG |
| Working Group | Topic | Description | For more information |
| R/Medicine | R/Medicine will be on-line from August 23rd to the 26th. | R/Medicine, an international conference with a devoted following, explores the use of R based statistics and data science tools to improve clinical research and practice. J.J. Allaire and Frank Harrell will deliver keynotes. Registration will open soon. | info@r-consortium.org https://events.linuxfoundation.org/r-medicine/ |
| Working Group | Topic | Description | For more information |
| R Tables for Regulatory Submission | The RTRS working group has settled on an approach to identify a small number of archetype tables that collectively display enough of the features required to cover a large portion of the conceptual space of tables that are essential for clinical trials regulatory work. A centerpiece of the white paper will be a table showing how various R packages cover the space of necessary features. Look here for the details: https://www.r-consortium.org/blog/2022/03/16/update-successful-r-based-test-package-submitted-to-fda | info@r-consortium.org https://github.com/RConsortium/rtrs-wg |
| Working Group | Topic | Description | For more information |
| R Validation Hub | Risk Assessment App Updates | Marly and the team have made some significant updates to the Risk Assessment app that are currently in beta testing. We have made a preview video here. | info@r-consortium.org https://www.pharmar.org/ |
| The riskmetric package is back on CRAN | The team have got the package back onto CRAN and are now focussed on the risk score. | ||
| New case studies | Earlier in the year we reached out and asked for case studies from those that are attempting to implement the ideas from our white paper. Some of the early case studies will be shared at the next all-hands meeting on April 26. Written case studies are being housed here. |
| Working Group | Topic | Description | For more information |
| Submissions | The First Pilot FDA Submission ends with a success! | The R Consortium Submission Working Group successfully completed the first project to send a simple “All R” test clinical trial submission through the FDA’s electronic gateway and have an FDA analyst unpack the code, run the analyses and produce the expected results. https://www.r-consortium.org/blog/2022/03/16/update-successful-r-based-test-package-submitted-to-fda It is notable that the submission itself was made by the RC working group using its own FDA credentials. This project is concrete example of the RC providing a way for a collective of Pharma companies to engage with the FDA. | info@r-consortium.org https://github.com/RConsortium/submissions-wg |
| Working Group | Topic | Description | For more information |
| Repositories | We can’t take CRAN for granted | The repositories working group is exploring ways that the R Consortium may be able to work with CRAN to provide additional repository services to the R Community and perhaps ease the burden on CRAN. For example, the group is looking into technical and operational issues that need to be overcome to have R-Hub perform exactly the same checks as CRAN. | info@r-consortium.org https://github.com/RConsortium/r-repositories-wg |
Upcoming events
R Adoption Series: Reporting Table Creation In R: Meeting Specific Needs With a General Framework
Apr 28, 8-9:30am PDT / 11am-12:30pm EDT / 4-5:30pm BST
Gabriel Becker, Scientist in the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology department at Genentech Research
Gabe will present the rtables package in three contexts. First, he will briefly present the package itself and how it can be used to create reporting tables, including those suitable for regulatory submissions. He will then discuss where rtables fits in the larger process of filing-table creation within Roche. Finally, he will pivot to discussing what contributed to rtables’ success as a general framework intended to meet specific needs and what lessons those in Industry can draw from its development.
Register here or see the webinar home page for details.
R/ Finance – June 3-4, Chicago
One of the longest running R conferences, is the primary meeting for academics and Quants using R for finance. This single track event is the place to talk time series, stochastic modeling, and meet some legendary R developers.
IDEA, The R Consortium working group on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility – June 4
Will be holding francophone satRdays event. More information should be available on the R Consortium Blog shortly
R Conference – June 8-10, New York
A conference that gathers of data scientists and data professionals to explore, share, and inspire ideas, and to promote the growth of open source ideals
useR! – June 20-23
Now in its 18th year is the official conference of the R Project for Statistical Computing. Keynotes include Sebastian Meyer, Amanda Cox, Julia Silge, Mine Dogucu and will showcase the afrimapr project supports the development of a community of practice in Africa around map-making in R
Rstudio::conf 2022 – July 25-28, Washington DC
A conference to connect, learn and celebrate all things R and RStudio! Sharpen your skills and celebrate the R Community together with an array of workshops and an inspiring lineup of speakers
R/Medicine – August 23-26, Virtual
An international conference with a devoted following, explores the use of R based statistics and data science tools to improve clinical research and practice. J.J. Allaire and Frank Harrell will deliver keynotes
We need you!
In this section, we highlight a few opportunities for getting more involved with the R Consortium.
- Help promote the R Consortium message around the globe
- Follow @RConsortium on Twitter (https://twitter.com/RConsortium) and R Consortium on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/r-consortium)
- We’re working on updating and improving the R Consortium YouTube account (https://www.youtube.com/c/RConsortium). There’s great content there from events, with talks and presentations covering many R topics.
- Like, comment, and share/retweet R Consortium content on an ongoing basis – new content appears frequently!
- Participate in an R Consortium working group
- R in Business (https://github.com/RConsortium/RBusiness), where the working group’s goal is to promote and support the R programming environment and the R ecosystem in business practices and business research
- Development of a community-based collaboration platform
- Organization and sponsorship of events
- Research on relevant topics in the intersection of business/accounting and technology
- Development of openly available courses/tutorials
- Development and maintenance of R packages
- R in Business (https://github.com/RConsortium/RBusiness), where the working group’s goal is to promote and support the R programming environment and the R ecosystem in business practices and business research