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 the computer package R. RDS Analyst provides a comprehensive framework for working with RDS data, including tools for sample and population estimations, 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 Analyst 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.
The installer is here.
Download the installer and double-click on it to install the software.
This can install all programs and utilities needed. If you already have some elements installed you can deselect (or cancel) during the installs. It is recommended that you install this all the first time. This installer is almost 400Mb in size and will take time to download.
A reboot is not required. You do not need to uninstall any components to update (This includes R and Java). However the RDS Analyst application or the R application must not be running when you update.
This is a new portable version that does not need the Java Runtime Environment to use.
Finally, for some computers the above installer does not work. Here is an alternative installer A and an alternative installer B.
Note for experienced users: This creates a private version of R for RDS Analyst to use and ensures RDS Analyst has the right version of R available for its use. If you already have R installed separately, the two versions will peacefully coexist and you can use the other version of R just as you were originally.
Finally, be sure to sign up for the RDS Analyst Users Group
There is a version for Apple Macintosh computers.
The installer is here
Download the installer and double-click on it to install the software.
Here are two other installer, made under different conditions. If the above does not work, feel free to try these to see if one does:
This can install all programs and utilities needed. If you already have some elements installed you can deselect (or cancel) during the installs. It is recommended that you install this all the first time. This installer is almost 400Mb in size and will take time to download.
A reboot is not required. You do not need to uninstall any components to update (This includes R and Java). However the RDS Analyst application or the R application must not be running when you update.
The RDS Analyst application and R will be in your Applications folder. To run RDS Analyst, double-click on it in the Applications folder.
This is a new portable version that does not need the Java Runtime Environment to use.
Note on Xcode and gfortran: Some Macs need the application Xcode and a version of Fortran to be installed. Xcode is software written by Apple to help people develop software on the Mac, including compiling some R packages from source code. In some cases, RDS Analyst will not run unless it is installed.
Here are the steps:
Some other helpful hints: Apple is going through a transition from Intel to Apple Silicon chips which is a radical change in architecture. In addition they are further locking down the Mac making it harder for R and RDS-A to simply work. So this has made creating a version of RDS-A for the Mac challenging as it needs to work for the specific setup of each user’s machine and these now vary a lot. As we do not know what your particular set up is, we can not pretest it. It works perfectly on our machines, of course.
Here are some things to try if it does not start:
Note for experienced users: This creates a private version of R for RDS Analyst to use and ensures RDS Analyst has the right version of R available for its use. If you already have R installed separately, the two versions will peacefully coexist and you can use the other version of R just as you were originally.
Finally, be sure to sign up for the RDS Analyst Users Group.
The World Health Organization (Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean) has published in its “Introduction to HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infection surveillance: Module 4” a supplement entitled “A Guide to using RDS Analyst and NetDraw”. This document is available here.
There is also information in the original manual, including videos: RDS Analyst Manual
To cite RDS Analyst, go to citation.
The best way to contact us with questions, comments or suggestions is through the RDS Analyst users group.
To post and receive messages from this forum, you need to join. To subscribe, go to rdsanalyst_help.
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Once you have joined the list, you can post your questions and comments to rdsanalyst_help@googlegroups.com.
A full list of all messages posted to this list is available here.
Enjoy!