Statistical Lab & R


The Statistical Lab uses the software package R for statistical
computing and visualizing data.
The "R Project for Statistical Computing"
is an Open Source project and is distributed and developed by a worldwide community.
Origin of the Lab

The Statistical Lab is a further development from the lab of the Statistik interaktiv! learning software. The concept of illustrating the workflow of statistical solutions and offering a problem based access to statistics has been adopted and enhanced.

R-Logo
Interaction of the Lab and R

The "rcore.exe" and the "r.dll" control the communication between the Statistical Lab and R. It transfers the "calls" and accepts the "call-backs".
The R-package is written especially for the Statistical Lab and contains common functions to display graphs and diagrams in the Statistical Lab.

During installation these files are copied into the R directory. The Statistical Lab executes all these files. After having installed the Lab, R will no more work properly as a standalone solution. In case you need to use a standalone version of R aswell, you can download a copy of the official R release from the R-Project's Webpage and do a parallelinstallation.

Why R?

Previous versions of the Statistical Lab used an interface with a self-maintained S-Plus similar language. At the request of many users we decided to changed to R.
The advantages are:

  • Range of features: In R it is possible to calculate very different and complex statistical phenomena. Especially experts can realize complex statistical calculations with the Statistical Lab.
  • Popularity: More and more statisticians accept the language R as a free alternative to S-Plus.
  • Easy to learn: Students and lecturers do not have to learn a language, which will not be used after their studies.
  • Easy introduction to programming in R: Especially students have problems using the command line to solve statistical problems. The graphical user interface of the Statistical Lab supports the students in constructing their own concepts and solutions.
  • Extensibility: Using socalled packages it is easy to extend R. The Statistical Lab supports the integration of official R-Packages. With UserLibs the Statistical Lab can use custom scripts and functions of other users.

Examples

Get to know the possibilities of the Statistical Lab:


Simulating Quincunx
(Galton Brett)
Preview
Open assignment

Manipulating data
Preview
Open assignment

The Monty Hall problem (Ziegenproblem)
Preview
Open assignment

More assignments »

Note: The Statistical Lab has to be downloaded and installed before!


More Info

Online Tutorial »

Download here »


Award winning

The Statistical Lab is winner of the swiss, german, austrian Medida-Prix 2003!

Read the jury's justification here (german).