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This is an introductory computing book. It was originally developed as support for a second-year university course for statistics students and assumes no background in computing other than the ability to use a keyboard and mouse, and the ability to locate documents (or files) within folders (or directories). This means that it is suitable for anyone who is not confident about his or her computer literacy.
However, the book should also serve as a quick start on unfamiliar topics even for an experienced computer user, as long as the reader is not offended by over-simplified explanations of familiar material.
The book is also directed mainly at educating individual researchers. The tools and techniques, at the level they are described in this book, are of most use for the activities of a a single researcher or the activities of a small research team.
For people involved in managing larger projects, expert data management assistance is advisable. Nevertheless, a familiarity with the topics in this book will be very useful for communicating with experts and understanding the important issues.
In summary, this book is primarily aimed at research students and individual researchers with little computing experience, but it is hoped that it will also be of use to a broader audience.
Paul Murrell
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License.