An empirical exploration of the diversified R ecosystem

Abstract

Born in the late 20s, R is one of the most popular software for statistical computing and graphics. With the development of information technology and the advent of the big data era, great changes have taken place in the R ecosystem. Based on the meta information of the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) and the bibliometric data of literature citing R, we discovered that while R is initiated by statistics, its development is benefited greatly from computer science and the main user group in academics come from various disciplines such as agricultural science, biological science, environmental science and medical science. In addition, we displayed the collaboration patterns among R developers and analyze the possible effects of collaboration in the R community.