This document describes BolzanoR, an R community located in Bolzano, Italy. The community was formed to bring together R users from different disciplines and provide in-person meetings, online collaboration tools, and a website. Key activities include weekly meetups to present topics, code together, and work on shared projects. Examples of community projects include a meteorological browser for South Tyrol and analyses of Twitter data. Lessons learned indicate that in-person interaction is important for building community, but online resources help with dissemination and inclusion of remote members. The organizers aim to further engage members and connect with other user groups.

1. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
BOLZANOR
A group of R-users in the middle of the Alps
Mattia Rossi1, Giulio Genova2,3, Peter Zellner 1
1 Institute for Earth Observation, Eurac Research
2 Institute for Alpine Environment, Eurac Research
3 Faculty for Science and Technology, Free University of Bolzano
SFSCon 2020
Track I – Data analytics
13.11.2020 @14:40
Connect with us through our web platform at
www.bolzanor.eu
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2. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
1. Motivation - General
Main data analysis goal
Main necessity to understand data
Toolset
The usual approach in data science is recurrent. It
means the extraction and correct interpretation of
information from any given data source.
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3. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
1. Motivation – Why R?
• Open-Source policy
• Beginner friendly
• Rstudio IDE and company
• Package environment (CRAN), especially
for statistics
• Plotting / Visualization
• Reporting and Scientific Writing
• Compatibility and Cross-platform
capability
• Steadily growing
• Large Community
• S as origin language
• Steep learning curve
• Native Data handling
• Slow Speed
• High Memory usage
• Package quality and quantity
R is the most comprehensive statistical analysis software around but – as any language - has some advantages
and disadvantages
During the last years a strong development and user community grew around
many different topics in R, such as…
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4. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
1. Motivation – R Topics 1
• Data Import
• Data retrieval
• Data Tidying
• Data conversion
• Data Visualization
• Data Communication
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5. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
1. Motivation – R Topics 2
• Programming Tools
• Platform Interfacing
• Spatial Analysis
• Web development
• Software development
• Machine / Deep Learning … and many others.
-> But that may become a problem
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6. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
www.bolzanor.eu
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7. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
Build an R community across thematically different disciplines or just for interested persons
1. Motivation – Our mission
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8. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
2. Organization
The communication between the attendees and the dissemination of the
activities is done in four ways:
• In person meetings (Meetups) on a weekly / bi-weekly basis (until covid-
19 emergency)
• Organization, news and online meeting capabilitites and news divulgation
through Slack (formerly also Microsoft Teams / Sharepoint). Up to 60
persons in the loop.
• Use of a Gitlab Git repository (both private and public)
• A dedicated web site to disseminate our activities at www.bolzanor.eu
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9. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
3. Activities - Meetups
In- person meetings have proven to be the most efficient way to
create the community.
Here we presented and or elaborated certain topics or simply met to
code in an informal atmosphere.
Usually with 10-20 participants on Tuesdays 5p.m.
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10. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
3. Activities - Dissemination
Dissemination of recent developments and activities as well as a
panel the attendees can spread the word on what they are
working on:
Blog Posts Scientific publications Algorithms / Packages /
Frameworks
Authors
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11. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
4. Developments
Meteobrowser South Tyrol (http://meteobrowser.eurac.edu)
Web-platform
Scientific publication
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12. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
4. Development
Analysis of Crowd sourcing information
Twitter activity
analysis during
SFSCon2019
Analysis of the Twitter relationships
between topics and Researcher Twitter Drought monitoring
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13. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
5. Lessons learned
Potential
• Much interest from diverse researcher
• Many R-users in Bolzano
• Open-Coding environment very appreciated
• Lot of outcome with little effort possible
• Good platform panel -> New projects and
collaboration evolved
Challenges
• In-person meetings crucial for the
community creation
• Motivation is key
• Knowledge gap is tricky to handle
• Balancing between teaching and developing
Strategic questions
• Influence of the covid-19 emergency ?
• Limit to R ?
• Generate more scientific or technical
output ?
Next steps
• Spread the word
• Motivate to engage
• Connect with other users and user
groups
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14. SFSCon 2020 BolzanoR – An R community in the middle of the Alps 13.11.2020
THANK YOU VERY MUCH
Mattia Rossi1, Giulio Genova2,3, Peter Zellner 1
1 Institute for Earth Observation, Eurac Research
2 Institute for Alpine Environment, Eurac Research
3 Faculty for Science and Technology, Free University of Bolzano
SFSCon 2020
Track I – Data analytics
13.11.2020 @14:40
Connect with us through our web platform at
www.bolzanor.eu
For helping with the organization we would
like to thank:
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