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Applications of R in Business Contest: Detailed Instructions

Revolution Analytics's picture
By Revolution Analytics
 on August 31, 2011

This page describes the process for entering the Applications of R in Business Contest.

What makes a winning entry?

The goal of this contest to highlight the most interesting applications of R and Revolution R to solving problems of interest to businesses who need to derive information from their data using statistical analysis. We're looking for self-contained demonstrations of R applied to such business problems, which would be suitable for showing to data analysts, IT managers, and others at companies to convince them of the value of R.

Entries should:

  • Describe the business problem to be solved
  • Perform analysis on a data set (real or simulated)
  • Include R code, output and graphics showcasing how R is applied to the problem

Entries which include (or link to) a self-contained R script reproducing the analysis and which are based on publicly-accessible data sets will be regarded favorably. An analysis which can be shown live is more likely to impress a potential R user.

Entries may use any feature of R, including packages available from CRAN. We encourage entries to also use the additional capabilities of Revolution R Enterprise, such as the RevoScaleR big data package and the RevoDeployR Web Services API, and a bonus prize is available to any entry which uses features exclusive to Revolution R Enterprise. (If you don't have Revolution R Enterprise, academics can download it for free, or you can request a trial version for use in the contest.

Publishing your Entry

Entries to the contest are submitted as a new "How To" page on inside-r.org, with the tag "contest". Here's how:

1. Log in to inside-r.org (if you don't have a login, register first).
2. Click the "How To" tab at the top of the page.
3. In the right column under "User Toolbox", click 'Create a "How To" post'.
4. Enter a title for your entry that describes your business application in the "Title" box.
5. Enter contest in the "Tags" box". Optionally, add additional keywords relevant to your application, separated by commas.
6. Describe your business application of R in the "Body:" box. See "Formatting your Entry" below for details.
7. Click Save
8. Your entry will be visible to you, but will not immediately be visible to the general public until it is approved by a moderator (usually within 24 hours -- this is to prevent spam). If you want to edit your entry before it's published, click the "wrench" symbol at the top-left of the screen and then click "My Content" to find your post.

Formatting your Entry

Each entry must be contained within a single "How To" page. You have access to selected HTML tags (the list is given to you at the bottom of the page as you post your entry). Use the <r> </r> tags to bracket R code. You can include images in your entries with the <img> tag, but you must host the images themselves on another site (for example, www.imgur.com). Click here for detailed instructions on formatting entries. You are encouraged to link to supplemental materials in your entry (for example, complete R scripts or data files), but entries will be judged on the content in the submitted page.

Questions? Need Help?

If you have questions about the contest, add a comment to this page or ask the organizers via email at contest@revolutionanalytics.com .