Overview

debiasR is an R package for assessing and correcting population representation bias in digital trace data. The package is part of the DEBIAS project and links to the wider DEBIAS GitHub organisation. It is designed to work with spatio-temporally aggregated data that provide population counts by location and flows between locations.

The package workflow supports assessment of coverage and representativeness bias in population counts, adjustment of biased origin-destination (OD) flows and validation of adjusted flows against benchmark data. Mobile-phone-derived mobility data are used to illustrate the package functions in these vignettes, but the same logic can apply to other digital trace sources with comparable spatial and temporal aggregation and a validation target. Examples include trade of goods, Internet traffic, supply chains and other location-to-location flows.

Installation

Install the development version of debiasR from GitHub:

pak::pak("de-bias/debiasR")

Alternatively, install with remotes instead:

remotes::install_github("de-bias/debiasR")

Install the empirical data companion when you need to reproduce the examples in the vignettes:

pak::pak("de-bias/debiasRdata")

The same installation is available with remotes:

remotes::install_github("de-bias/debiasRdata")

Then load the package and follow the walkthroughs in the package documentation or the source files in vignettes/.

Workflow

Three-stage debiasR OD workflow

Repository structure

• R/ - package functions and internal helpers
• data/ - lightweight simulated datasets retained for tests and compatibility
• data-raw/ - development scripts; historical raw calibration CSVs are not distributed
• man/ - generated documentation for exported objects
• tests/ - testthat tests
• vignettes/ - package-facing Quarto vignettes built into the documentation site
• notes/ - project briefs, migration notes, workshop material, and status tracking
• style/ - plotting and Quarto styling helpers
• .github/ - issue and pull request templates
• assets/ - logos and other static assets
• CONTRIBUTING.md - contribution guidance
• NEWS.md - release notes and migration notes
• LICENSE - licensing information
• README.md - package overview and usage instructions

License

This repository uses a dual-licensing approach:

• MIT License for all software code (see LICENSE)
• Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) for documentation, data, and non-code content (see LICENSE-CC-BY-4.0.md)

See the LICENSE file for full details.

Core development team

The core development team consists of Francisco Rowe and Carmen Cabrera (University of Liverpool).

We actively maintain and develop the package and warmly invite contributions from the wider research community — including new methods, bug reports, feature requests and ideas for improvement.

If you’re interested in collaborating or contributing, please join our growing open-source community.

Contributing

We welcome contributions of all kinds: code, documentation, issues, examples and methodological ideas. All changes to main are made through pull requests. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for the current workflow, branch naming guidance and pull request templates.

Acknowledging contributors

We use the All Contributors Bot to recognise everyone’s work—code, docs, ideas, design and more.

After your PR is merged, comment on an issue or PR:

@all-contributors please add @your-username for code, doc, etc.

(Replace @your-username and the contribution types as appropriate.) See the emoji key for available contribution types.

Thank you for helping us build open, collaborative and impactful projects with DEBIAS!

Francisco Rowe 📖 💻 🐛 🖋 🎨 💡 🤔 🚇 🚧 📦 📆 🔬 👀 🔧 ⚠️

Carmen Cabrera 📖 💻 🐛 🖋 🎨 💡 🤔 🚇 🚧 📦 📆 🔬 👀 🔧 ⚠️

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!