RDS Analyst Manual

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Introduction

RDS Analyst (RDS-A) is a software package for the analysis of Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) data that implements recent advances in statistical methods.

RDS Analyst has an easy-to-use graphical user interface to the powerful and sophisticated capabilities of of the computer package R. RDS Analyst provides a comprehensive framework for working with RDS data, including tools for estimation, testing, confidence intervals and sensitivity analysis.

Example capabilities are an easy format for entering data, the visualization of recruitment chains, regression modeling, and missing data.

The interface of RDS is similar to SPSS. RDS Analyst is also a free, easy to use, alternative to proprietary data analysis software such as SPSS, STATA, SAS/JMP, and Minitab. It has a menu system to do common data manipulation and analysis tasks, and an excel-like spreadsheet in which to view and edit data.

RDS Analyst is meant for users who want to use state-of-the-art techniques for estimation and quantification of uncertainty from data collected via RDS. It represents advanced, comprehensive and open-source software to visualize, model and conduct sensitivity analyzes for RDS data.

RDS Analyst is an intuitive, cross-platform graphical data analysis system for the analysis of RDS data. It uses menus and dialogs to guide the user efficiently through the data manipulation and analysis process, and has an excel-like spreadsheet for easy data frame visualization and editing. It is also the front-end to the very powerful capabilities accessible via the R command-line interface and also the extensive capabilities of the R statistical language.


Current State

  • It is an alpha version and is under continuous development and **should only be distributed among the group (Lisa, Krista, Whipple, Cori and Mark)**. This is because this version has advanced code in it and will have bad bugs. We want to support the program and do not want immature versions floating around that give us a bad name and which we will not be able to stamp out.
  • A **release** version will be made available sometime before the Workshop. This version number will be 0.5. Numbers below 0.5 are for internal use only.
  • The above blurb is draft for what version 0.5 will be and not the current state.
  • Basic facts:
    • RDS is written for the R statistical environment
  • The current development form is for Windows. Macintosh and LINUX versions will be available in installers when it is released publicly.
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