There have been a number of resources that have been invaluable in my career, so I wish to share a sample of them to (hopefully) simplify your statistical computing and overall data analysis needs.
1. UNdata (United Nations’ statistical database)
UNdata provides international statistics hosted by the United Nations Statistics Division. It provides general regional profiles that summarize basic demographic, economic, and health data of countries, as well as time-series tables for historical analyses. Highly recommended for social scientists, public policy analysts, and other similar professions.
2. Institute for Digital Research and Education (idre), University of California at Los Angeles
The Institute has tutorial videos, annotated command outputs, workshop notes, and more for those wanting to learn and improve their skills in Stata, SPSS, SAS, and R. They emphasize applications while explaining the statistical theories behind them. Highly recommended as introductory material to these software.
3. R for Data Science (Hadley Wickham & Garrett Grolemund, 2017)
Wickham and Grolemund’s R for Data Science book teaches a select number of indispensable tools for data preparation, visualization, and reporting. Particularly, they demonstrate the dplyr library for transformations, ggplot2 for professional graphics, and R Markdown for presentable documentation. A must-read for anyone working with the R programming language.
4. LibreOffice: The Document Foundation (free open-source equivalent to Microsoft Office)
Microsoft Office is ubiquitous. While its cost is a non-issue for large organizations, for others, however, even its cheapest options are expensive. Fortunately, LibreOffice offers suites that function the same, such as its Writer Document (Word equivalent) and Calc Spreadsheet (Excel equivalent). Notably, the Math Formula suite incorporates a formula editor that makes users be able to type complex mathematical equations at a faster rate than the cumbersome point-and-click method in Word. Additionally, LibreOffice’s Access-equivalent Base boasts formal SQL scripting abilities and Wizard functions that guide the database design process. Recommended for students, work-at-home users, and smaller organizations wishing to cut costs.
5. bookdown.org
Bookdown.org is a site containing free online books about R and statistics. Notably, the bookdown book teaches you how to create your own books in R with the bookdown package. Highly recommended for R users of any level, beginner through expert.