This level of activity ranges from very low (Deducer, RKWard) to very high (BlueSky, R Commander).įor JASP, plug-ins are called “modules,” and they are found by clicking the “+” sign at the top of its main screen. They contribute “plug-ins” that add new menus and dialog boxes to the GUI. Regardless of what comes built-in, it’s good to know how active the development community is. When choosing a GUI, one of the most fundamental questions is: what can it do for you? What the initial software installation of each GUI gets you is covered in the Graphics, Analysis, and Modeling sections of this series of articles. That’s a good idea, though, as it guarantees compatibility with the version of R that it uses, plus a standard R installation by itself is harder than JASP’s. So, if you already have a copy of R installed, you’ll have two after installing JASP. JASP’s single-step installation is extremely easy and includes its own copy of R. The HelpDesks at most universities are flooded with such calls at the beginning of each semester! Advanced computer users often don’t appreciate how lost beginners can become while attempting even a simple installation. Others install in multiple steps, such as R Commander (two steps) and Deducer (up to seven steps). Some, such as BlueSky Statistics, jamovi, and RKWard, install in a single step. The various user interfaces available for R differ quite a lot in how they’re installed. That is usually the dialog boxes and their settings that created the original complete analysis. GUI reproducibility is the ability to save the workflow in GUI form. However, GUI users often don’t understand the code and have trouble re-purposing it for similar analyses. Most of the R GUIs offer code reproducibility, the ability to record the R code that you can use to reproduce the workflow. Reproducibility = The ability to record and re-run every detail of an analysis, preferably integrated with the text that describes those results. IDE users are people who prefer to write R code to perform their analyses. I do not include point-and-click style menus and dialog boxes when using this term. IDE = Integrated Development Environment, which helps programmers write code. They don’t have the time or inclination to become good programmers. So, GUI users are people who prefer using a GUI to perform their analyses. I do not include any assistance for programming in this definition. GUI = Graphical User Interface using menus and dialog boxes to avoid having to type programming code. Reviewing R GUIs keeps me quite busy, so I don’t have time also to review all the IDEs, though my favorite is RStudio. There are various definitions of user interface types, so here’s how I’ll be using the following terms. Some of JASP’s calculations are done in C++, so getting that converted to R will be a necessary first step on that path. The developers hope to add that to a future version. However, while JASP uses R to do some of its calculations, it does not currently show you the R code it uses, nor does it allow you to execute your own. Most statistics software emphasizes a more traditional frequentist approach JASP offers both. One of JASP’s key features is its emphasis on Bayesian analysis. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and there is even a cloud version. JASP stands for Jeffreys’ Amazing Statistics Program, a nod to the Bayesian statistician Sir Harold Jeffreys. Most of these reviews also include cursory descriptions of the programming support that each GUI offers. This article is one of a series of reviews that aim to help non-programmers choose the Graphical User Interface (GUI) for R which best meets their needs. JASP is a free and open-source statistics package that targets beginners looking to point-and-click their way through analyses.
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