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Activity Number: 390 - Accessing Resources from the Web in Data Analysis
Type: Invited
Date/Time: Tuesday, July 31, 2018 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
Sponsor: Section on Statistical Computing
Abstract #326587
Title: Harnessing the Power of the Web via R Clients for Web APIs
Author(s): Lucy D'Agostino McGowan*
Companies: Vanderbilt University
Keywords: R; API; programming; data science; computing; googledrive
Abstract:

We often want to harness the power of the internet in our daily data practices, i.e., collect data from the internet, share data on the internet, let a dataset evolve on the internet and analyze it periodically, put products up on the internet, etc. While many of these goals can be achieved in a browser via mouse clicks, these practices aren't very reproducible and they don't scale, as they are difficult to capture and replicate. Most of what can be done in a browser can also be implemented with code. Web application programing interfaces (APIs) are one tool for facilitating this communication in a reproducible and scriptable way. In this talk we will discuss the general framework of common R clients for web APIs, as well as dive into specific examples. We will focus primarily on the googledrive package, a package that allows the user to control their Google Drive from the comfort of their R console, as well as other common R clients for web APIs, while discussing best practices for efficient and reproducible coding.


Authors who are presenting talks have a * after their name.

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