This course in our Data Analyst in R path will help you build on the R programming skills you've learned as you scrape data from the web to create unique analysis projects.
Although there are many datasets available in convenient formats, there's also a lot of data that's stored in tougher-to-access ways, like as a table on web page. To get at this data, we'll need to use web scraping. In R, we can do that with the rvest scraping package.
In this course, you'll learn how to scrape the web using R and rvest. You'll start by learning the basics of web page structure, and a little about HTML and CSS. You'll also learn how to get the code from a page into your R workflow for further parsing and cleaning.
Then, you'll dig deeper into scraping, learning to use the CSS Selector to get precisely the data you want (and none of the other content or code you don't).
The course wraps up with a challenge that'll get you more familiar with how web scraping can work across different sites. Then, you'll dive into a guided project that'll help you put your own unique spin on web-scraped data analysis.
By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
Web Scraping in R Course — Lessons
Web Scraping in R
Learn the basics of scraping data from web pages with R.
Intermediate Web Scraping in R
Learn how to filter web page data to get only the information you need using R and rvest.
Challenge: Working with Different Web Pages in R
Expand your skills by working to scrape data from different kinds of web pages.
Guided Project: Analyzing Movie Ratings
Build a unique web scraping data analysis project by scraping movie rating data and analyzing it.
Frequently asked questions about this Web Scraping in R course:
How long does the course take?
On Dataquest, you can learn at your own pace. There's no set course schedule you need to worry about.
Different learners work at different paces, but a typical learner might finish this course in a week to a month, depending on how much time they were able to dedicate to it.
Where are the videos?
We don't teach with videos. We think the best way to learn programming is to actually write code, not watch someone else write code.
Read more about the science behind our hands-on learning approach.
Can I try it for free?
Yes, and you should! Sign up for a free account and get started right now, right in your browser!
What is web scraping useful for?
While there is a lot of useful data available in easy-to-access formats like as a downloadable CSV or via an API, the web is also full of useful data that isn't as easily available. Sometimes, the only way to get at this data is to use programming skills to "scrape" websites, grabbing the information you need and storing it in a format that you can work with for data analysis.
Working data analysis will typically use SQL, APIs, and spreadsheets to access most of their data. But web scraping can be helpful for gathering market data. And because it allows you to collect totally unique data sets, web scraping projects are also great for helping you stand out from the crowd in the job application process.