Changing computational research. The challenges ahead

EDITORIAL The past year has been an interesting one for those interested in reproducible research. There have been great examples of replicability [1, 2] in research communication, and examples of horrifying failure of reproducibility (as described in [3]) with serious questions being raised on t...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Neylon, Cameron, Aerts, J., Brown, C.T., Coles, S.J., Hatton, L., Lemire, D., Millman, K.J., Murray-Rust, P., Perez, F., Saunders, N., Shah, N., Smith, A., Varoquaux, G., Willighagen, E.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: BIOMED CENTRAL LTD 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/81466
_version_ 1848764370325078016
author Neylon, Cameron
Aerts, J.
Brown, C.T.
Coles, S.J.
Hatton, L.
Lemire, D.
Millman, K.J.
Murray-Rust, P.
Perez, F.
Saunders, N.
Shah, N.
Smith, A.
Varoquaux, G.
Willighagen, E.
author_facet Neylon, Cameron
Aerts, J.
Brown, C.T.
Coles, S.J.
Hatton, L.
Lemire, D.
Millman, K.J.
Murray-Rust, P.
Perez, F.
Saunders, N.
Shah, N.
Smith, A.
Varoquaux, G.
Willighagen, E.
author_sort Neylon, Cameron
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description EDITORIAL The past year has been an interesting one for those interested in reproducible research. There have been great examples of replicability [1, 2] in research communication, and examples of horrifying failure of reproducibility (as described in [3]) with serious questions being raised on the ability of our current system of research communication to guarantee, or even encourage, that published research be reproducible or replicable. When we launched the call for papers for Open Research Computation in late 2010 we saw a clear need for higher standards. Computational research should stand out as an exemplar of just how reproducible research can be, yet it falls short more often than not. With modern computational tools it is entirely possible to provide packages which allow direct replication of results. It is possible to provide data and code in the form of a functional virtual machine image along with automated tests to ensure everything is working as expected. But alongside this we can support the reader’s ability to modify and re-purpose tools, to run them against new data, indeed to support efforts to deliberately break the system to identify its limitations. In short, to do what we are supposed to do as scientists – replicate, reproduce, and test the limits of our models and understanding.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T11:18:17Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-81466
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T11:18:17Z
publishDate 2012
publisher BIOMED CENTRAL LTD
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-814662021-01-13T03:09:38Z Changing computational research. The challenges ahead Neylon, Cameron Aerts, J. Brown, C.T. Coles, S.J. Hatton, L. Lemire, D. Millman, K.J. Murray-Rust, P. Perez, F. Saunders, N. Shah, N. Smith, A. Varoquaux, G. Willighagen, E. Science & Technology Life Sciences & Biomedicine Mathematical & Computational Biology EDITORIAL The past year has been an interesting one for those interested in reproducible research. There have been great examples of replicability [1, 2] in research communication, and examples of horrifying failure of reproducibility (as described in [3]) with serious questions being raised on the ability of our current system of research communication to guarantee, or even encourage, that published research be reproducible or replicable. When we launched the call for papers for Open Research Computation in late 2010 we saw a clear need for higher standards. Computational research should stand out as an exemplar of just how reproducible research can be, yet it falls short more often than not. With modern computational tools it is entirely possible to provide packages which allow direct replication of results. It is possible to provide data and code in the form of a functional virtual machine image along with automated tests to ensure everything is working as expected. But alongside this we can support the reader’s ability to modify and re-purpose tools, to run them against new data, indeed to support efforts to deliberately break the system to identify its limitations. In short, to do what we are supposed to do as scientists – replicate, reproduce, and test the limits of our models and understanding. 2012 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/81466 10.1186/1751-0473-7-2 English http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ BIOMED CENTRAL LTD fulltext
spellingShingle Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Neylon, Cameron
Aerts, J.
Brown, C.T.
Coles, S.J.
Hatton, L.
Lemire, D.
Millman, K.J.
Murray-Rust, P.
Perez, F.
Saunders, N.
Shah, N.
Smith, A.
Varoquaux, G.
Willighagen, E.
Changing computational research. The challenges ahead
title Changing computational research. The challenges ahead
title_full Changing computational research. The challenges ahead
title_fullStr Changing computational research. The challenges ahead
title_full_unstemmed Changing computational research. The challenges ahead
title_short Changing computational research. The challenges ahead
title_sort changing computational research. the challenges ahead
topic Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Mathematical & Computational Biology
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/81466