I have the following error when I install the packages - tried on all three links listed on the website but to no avail..

Is there a way to install without the 'uncertainty.Rmd' file which seems to be causing the problem? Any other fixes to get started would be greatly appreciated as I can't seem to find anything googling these errors.

Error: Failed to install 'qss' from GitHub:
System command 'R' failed, exit status: 1, stdout + stderr (last 10 lines):
E> --- finished re-building ‘probability.Rmd’
E>
E> --- re-building ‘uncertainty.Rmd’ using rmarkdown
E> --- finished re-building ‘uncertainty.Rmd’
E>
E> SUMMARY: processing the following file failed:
E> ‘discovery.Rmd’
E>
E> Error: Vignette re-building failed.
E> Execution halted

Sec 7.1.3 and p.372 in the tidyverse version of QSS (also the non-tidyverse version) says

$z_{\alpha/2}$ is the critical value, which equals the $(1 − \alpha/2)$ quantile of the standard normal distribution such that $P(Z> \alpha/2) = 1 -P(Z \leq \alpha/2) = 1-\alpha/2$, where Z is a standard normal random variable."

I think the last part should be $=\alpha/2$ instead of 1 minus it? P(Z > z_{0.025}) = P(Z > 1.96) = 0.025.

add answer options to write lm also as lm(df$y ~ df$x1 + df$x2, data = df)

Small thing: It's the Federalist Papers (not the Federal Papers)

Some students are having difficulty getting qss to run, which I can reproduce on my machine:

> install_course_github("kosukeimai", "qss")
perl is deprecated. Please use regexp instead

This part seems to work, despite the deprecation message. Then

> swirl()

| Welcome to swirl!

| Please sign in. If you've been here before, use the same name as you did
| then. If you are new, call yourself something unique.

What shall I call you? bgoodri

| Please choose a course, or type 0 to exit swirl.

1: qss
2: Take me to the swirl course repository!

Selection: 1

| Please choose a lesson, or type 0 to return to course menu.

1: CAUSALITY
2: DISCOVERY
3: INTRO
4: LICENSE
5: MEASUREMENT
6: PREDICTION
7: PROBABILITY
8: README.md
9: UNCERTAINTY

Selection: 1

Error in file(con, "r") : invalid 'description' argument

| Leaving swirl now. Type swirl() to resume.

The traceback and session info is

> traceback(max.lines = 5)
15: file(con, "r")
14: readLines(input)
13: paste(readLines(input), collapse = "\n")
12: yaml.load(paste(readLines(input), collapse = "\n"), ...)
11: yaml.load_file(file)
10: parse_content.yaml(file, e)
9: parse_content.default(dataName, e)
8: parse_content(dataName, e)
7: loadLesson.default(e, courseU, lesson)
6: loadLesson(e, courseU, lesson)
5: mainMenu.default(e)
4: mainMenu(e)
3: resume.default(e, ...)
2: resume(e, ...)
1: (function (expr, val, ok, vis, data = e) 
   {
       e$expr <- expr
       e$val <- val
       e$ok <- ok
    ...
> sessionInfo()
R version 3.2.3 (2015-12-10)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Debian GNU/Linux stretch/sid

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C              
 [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8    
 [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8   
 [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C                 
 [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C            
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C       

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] swirl_2.2.21

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] httr_1.0.0      R6_2.1.1        magrittr_1.5    tools_3.2.3    
 [5] RCurl_1.95-4.7  curl_0.9.4      yaml_2.1.13     memoise_0.2.1  
 [9] crayon_1.3.1    stringi_1.0-1   stringr_1.0.0   digest_0.6.9   
[13] testthat_0.11.0 bitops_1.0-6   
> 

I will try to dig into the error more.

It's a bit awkward to work with the csv's in their current form and to write reproducible code. Have you considered releasing an R package of the data instead or in addition to this? I quickly put together an R package with all the QSS data: https://github.com/jrnold/qss-data. All datasets as either built-in datasets to load, or files accessible through system.file, the scripts are included as demos for the package, and the package builds its own website using pkgdown. Right now the entire thing is scripted to build from the latest version of this repository. The only thing that is missing is metadata about variables.

In the 2022 tidyverse of QSS, section 4.3 is only a single paragraph. This paragraph is part of a larger section in the non-tidy original version. Maybe 4.4 should be a subsection, e.g.?

In CAUSALITY/social.csv the primary year is 2006 in variable primary2006, while in PREDICTION/social.csv the primary year is 2008 in variable primary2008. Since these should both be the same data from

Alan S. Gerber, Donald P. Green, and Christopher W. Larimer. (2008). “Social Pressure and Voter > Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review, Vol. > 102, No. 1, pp. 33–48.

the primary year should be 2006 in both. This also affects the code and text in Section 4.3 that refers to the 2008 primary and primary2008 variable.