Introduction to R and the Basics of LLMs and Generative AI

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 15:31:32 -0400
ai, ellmer, genai, llm, programming, r

UMBC's Center for Social Science Scholarship kicks off its Fall workshop series on generative AI, LLMs, and computational social science methods with Eric Stokan's session on computing in R and how to use generative AI/LLMs in social science research workflows. The session will cover:

How to install and set up R and RStudio

R fundamentals: objects, vectors, data frames, scripts, packages (tidyverse)

R Markdown/Quarto: document structure, code chunks, rendering to HTML/PDF

LLMs 101: what they are, common research use cases, and calling them through the R package ellmer

A checklist for responsible LLM use in research

The session will be held 12-1:30pm in person in room 451 of the Public Policy Building.

Lunch will be provided for registered attendees only.

Register here