|
The fruit of scholarship, in computational sciences, is obviously a hybrid of theoretical and experimental research components. However, in our current scientific publication practice, researchers do not include all the necessary components of their research in their academic papers.
Indeed, in our traditional publication system, the limitations of a paper medium make it impossible for authors to include their code, data, or any other complementary material in their research papers.
It is impossible to believe most of the computational results shown in conferences and papers.
… Current computational science practice does not generate reliable knowledge
David Donoho et al.
Stanford University
|
The direct consequence of such a practice is that other researchers who are interested in building their research upon a published paper are left on their own to reproduce and validate the results presented in the paper. This type of situation sounds familiar to many of us. Don't you agree?
An article about computational science in a scientific publication is not the scholarship itself, it is merely advertising of the scholarship.
The actual scholarship is the complete software development environment and the complete set of instructions which generated the figures
Professor Jon Claerbout
Stanford University
|
Recent studies go further and show that the lack of reporting experimental details and validating results in computational sciences is leading to a crisis of credibility. These studies argue that the current computational science practice is not reliable!
The term reproducible research was first proposed by Professor Jon Claerbout at Stanford University and is promoted by many other researchers as a good practice and a necessary response to the above issues.
What is Reproducible Research?
Reproducible research refers to the idea that the ultimate product of research is the paper along with the full computational environment used to produce the results in the paper such as the code, data, etc. necessary for reproduction of the results and building upon the research.
|
compendium
A compendium is a collection, or archive, containing one or more dynamic documents together with supporting data, code, and text
A compendium has one, or more, self-contained dynamic documents that can be regenerated in absolute detail by others, and that can often be used in contexts other than the author’s original work
A compendium serves as a means for distributing, managing, and updating the collection
Robert Gentleman
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Duncan Temple Lang
University of California–Davis
|
In reproducible research practice, researchers provide the product of their research as a Reproducible Research Compendium (RRC). Reproducible Research Compendium is defined as a container for all components of the research that are necessary for others to understand and reproduce the research.
Experience shows that the principal beneficiary of reproducible research is you the author yourself
Professor Jon Claerbout
Stanford University
|
Aside from being a good practice, recent studies show that reproducible research increases the impact of publications. These studies argue that reproducible research compendia are used and cited more often in other papers.
This impact enhancement, along with many other advantages of RR, highly motivates researchers to make their research reproducible.
We are convinced that making research reproducible is not only a matter of good practice, but also
increases the impact of our publications
Patrick Vandewalle
Philips Research
Jelena Kovacevic
Carnegie Mellon University
Martin Vetterli
EPFL
|
Now that you understood the concept of reproducible research, click here to learn how you can build and enhance a reproducible research compendium.
If you need more information, click here to find all the papers discussing reproducible research.
Click here to view/add comments on this article
|
Share/Save
