Open the World with Open Source

Workshop Organised by the Monash Business Analytics Team (WOMBAT)


Tutorial PM 2: Oct 22 1:30-5:00

Applied forecasting


Presenter: Julia Polak is a Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis (CEBRA) at the University of Melbourne. She co-authors a popular book `Practical Time Series Forecasting with R: A Hands-On Guide’. With a passion for education, she has taught a range of statistics courses to undergraduate and graduate students, catering to diverse levels of proficiency in statistics. Julia integrates innovative teaching methodologies into her curriculum, including the use of dynamic graphics, interactive applications, and data competitions, to enhance learning and engagement beyond traditional assignments.

Tutorial details

We will take a practical approach to time-series forecasting. We will discuss each forecasting process step, including exploring and visualising time series, and we will also discuss practical approaches to evaluating the performance of forecasting solutions. The tutorial will cover popular forecasting methods, including smoothing algorithms, regression models, and ARIMA. Finally, we will discuss automated forecasting and the advantages of assembly methods. The material covered in this tutorial is inspired by the book Practical Time Series Forecasting with R: A Hands-On Guide.


Background: Participants should have a basic working knowledge of R and a little experience with ggplot2. This tutorial has many ‘hands-on’ activities. It is strongly recommended that you attend with your own laptop. Please ensure you have installed Rstudio, R and the recommended list of packages before the tutorial starts. If you are unfamiliar with writing R code or with using Rstudio, consider working through the first two chapters of the learnr materials.


Materials available here.

Register for this tutorial here.