Researchers often need to retrieve data from a web service and assemble it into a usable data set. This workshop will show you how to do that, using the httr and rvest packages in R.
If you wish to follow along and try things yourself follow these steps:
- install R from https://cran.r-project.org/
- install RStudio from https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/#download
- install required packages in R with
install.packages(c("httr", "rvest", "jsonlite"))
A github repository containing the workshop materials is available https://github.com/izahn/R_retrieving_data. You can view lesson notes at https://rawgit.com/izahn/R_retrieving_data/master/retrievingOnlineData.html if you wish.