R User Groups are Everywhere

by Joseph Rickert

In a little over three weeks useR! 2015 will convene in Aalborg, Denmark and I am looking forward to being there and learning and talking about R user groups. The following map shows the big picture for R User Groups around the world.

However, it is very difficult to keep it up to date. Just after the map "went to press" I learned that a new user group formed in Norfolk Virginia last month. In fact, at least 11 new R user groups have formed so far this year.

          RUG	               City	         Country	  Date Founded	No. Members	Website
Berlin R Users Group	       Berlin	         Germany	1/5/2015	133	http://www.meetup.com/Berlin-R-Users-Group/
Rhus - useR Group	       Aarhus	         Denmark	1/19/2015	87	http://www.meetup.com/Rhus-useR-group
Trenton R Users (TRU)	       Trenton	         US	        1/27/2015	50	http://www.meetup.com/TRUgroup/
Honolulu R Users Group	       Honolulu	         US	        1/30/2015	36	http://www.meetup.com/Honolulu-R-Users-Group/
Oslo useR! Group	       Oslo	         Norway	        2/26/2015	89	http://www.meetup.com/Oslo-useR-Group/
St. Petersburg R User Group    St Petersburg	 Russia	        3/13/2015	50	http://www.meetup.com/St-Petersburg-R-User-Group/
Nijmegen eveRybody	       Nijmegen	         Netherlands	4/11/2015	23	http://www.meetup.com/Nijmegen-eveRybody/
AthensR	                       Athens	         Greece	        4/16/2015	30	http://www.meetup.com/AthensR/
757 R Users Group	       Norfolk	         US	        4/22/2015	18	http://www.meetup.com/757-R-Users-Group/
LubbockR Meetup	               Lubbock	         US	        5/5/2015	23	http://www.meetup.com/lubbockR-Meetup/
R Kazan	                       Kazan	         Russia	        5/10/2015	11	http://www.meetup.com/R-Kazan/

Moreover, judging by the more than 4,000 users that showed up for the R China conference this week, China is probably severely under represented. There are very likely a few more user groups there and in the rest of Asia for us to learn about.

From a tweet by Kun Ren

The data set used to build the map may be obtained here: Download All_RUGS_6_9_15. In addition to the name and address information it contains fields for the date the user group was founded and an estimate of the number of members. For sites that use meetup.com as their web platform I collected the relevant information directly from the group home pages. For user groups using other platforms I estimated start date and number of members from other information available on the website.

                     RUG      City State       Country Date.Founded Num.Members                                       Website Platform
1 Adelaide R-users group  Adelaide    SA     Australia    10/1/2011          94 http://www.meetup.com/Adelaide-R-users-group/   Meetup
2   Albany R Users Group    Albany    NY United States    3/20/2014         104   http://www.meetup.com/Albany-R-Users-Group/   Meetup
3             amst-R-dam Amsterdam         Netherlands     9/9/2010         483             http://www.meetup.com/amst-R-dam/   Meetup
4 Turkish Community of R    Ankara              Turkey     3/8/2013         181              http://www.meetup.com/tcr-users/   Meetup
5      Rhus - useR group    Aarhus             Denmark    1/19/2015          87         http://www.meetup.com/Rhus-useR-group   Meetup
6                AthensR    Athens              Greece    4/16/2015          30                http://www.meetup.com/AthensR/   Meetup

We would like this information as well as our R User Group Directory to be as accurate as possible and would very much appreciate corrections, additions and subtractions from user group organizers.

If you are going to Aalborg and would like to chat about R User Groups please come by the Revolution Analytics / Microsoft table.

Here is the code used to draw the map: Download Code_for_RUGs_Map.

Comments

[tonytonov]

Greetings from St. Petersburg user group :)

[Illya]

Hey. You forgot about the Santo Domingo R User group in the Dominican Republic. We are on meetup, and have over 60 members.

[tibian]

Regards from Polish group :)

[Gergely Daróczi]

Hi Joe, thanks for maintaining this really impressive list. Do you have a GitHub repo so that I can submit a pull request? I'd love to fix the country/city fields of the Budapest Users of R Network (should be Hungary/Budapest). Thanks, Gergely

[Joseph Rickert]

Typepad HTML Email

Hello Gergely,
 
Thank you for letting me know about the mistake on the R user group map. I apologize for that. We will correct it, however, it may have to wait till I get back
to CA after the useR! conference.
 
Unfortunately, we do not have things set up on a GtHub repository. Right now things are very awkward as we are caught in the middle of a migration between the
old systems we were using at Revolution and the new way of doing things at Microsoft.
 
Will you be at useR!
 
Best regards,
Joe