This course provides an introduction to R as a programming language and environment for data analytics and visualization. R is popular in many fields and industries for small and big data applications. It is open-source and backed by a huge community that creates new tools and packages every day. The course will first cover the basic syntax of R language, including functions and flow control. Then, it will introduce some commonly used data structures, such as vectors, lists, matrices and data frames. Next, data importing and visualization in R will be presented. Furthermore, the course will also introduce a few primary data cleaning techniques in dealing with missing values, duplicates and inconsistency, and how to implement simple data transformation and normalization with R. Last, some classic data mining models and the corresponding packages in R will also be presented. Each session of the course will consist of presentations and demos on the topic and hands-on exercises for students to practice.