[Mandy Gooch]

Dear Reproducibility IG members,

With the start of RDA P22, we are excited to host an asynchronous discussion highlighting the reproducibility efforts happening within RDA WGs and IGs as well as external reproducibility groups and organizations. This discussion will take place in two forums: 1) the mailing list and 2) our newly established RDA Reproducibility IG Slack. If you would like to participate in the discussion, please reply to the mailing list posts throughout the coming weeks OR join our slack and the #rda-plenary-22 channel.

Let’s kick this event off with our first featured group — the RDA Engaging Researchers with Data IG!

Engaging Researchers with Data IG

The RDA Engaging Researchers with Data IG is concerned with the social and networking aspects of reproducibility and aims to support and embed best practices at both the researcher and institutional level. Challenges to achieving this include cultural change, incentivisation and the need for expert support. The IG is interested in coordinating the dissemination of best practice and hearing about the outputs produced by other groups that support this work.

The Engaging Researchers with Data IG has provided additional information on their vision for reproducibility and its challenges below. Please feel free to continue the conversation by replying to this email!

Learn more about the Engaging Researchers with Data IG during the ‘Cross-community efforts in building services and professions for Data Stewards’ session at 2pm UTC.

Briefly, tell us about your work/organization and how it’s related to computational reproducibility; What are you trying to address and how?

The RDA Engaging Researchers with Data IG is concerned with the social and networking aspects of reproducibility as part of the group’s broader goals to support best practices around research data. Our group’s main activities involve collecting, documenting, and sharing case studies of programmes and activities that develop researcher skills and their understanding of best practice.

Catch the recording for the Engaging Researchers with Data IG P22 session ‘Navigating the Landscape Together: A Research Data Management Café’ (Available soon)

What is your/your organization’s vision when it comes to computational reproducibility (e.g., all scholarship is computationally reproducible by default)?

All researchers and institutions are aware of best practice around computational reproducibility, are incentivised to implement/support it, and have access to open tools and resources that facilitate it.

The rationale for this vision is that all researchers and their places of work should understand the value of reproducibility and how to implement it, which are both within the scope of our IG to disseminate. However, not all scholarship can be computationally reproducible: some data collection opportunities are ephemeral by nature.

What are some of the challenges you see to achieving this vision?

Institutions, funders, and other stakeholders will need expert support to:

• understand and communicate the value of reproducibility across different research field and contexts;

• define the circumstances under which reproducibility should be expected; and

• develop incentive and monitoring systems that create the minimum possible extra friction on research activity.

For researchers, cultural change may be required to make reproducible research the norm. The success of this will depend on articulating the value of reproducibility and incentivising it correctly; otherwise the perception will be that reproducibility is another administrative burden that detracts from the ‘actual research’.

What would you like to ask the members of our Interest Group?

• What are the group’s priorities in terms of outputs/activities?

• How can we ensure coordination between relevant IGs, particularly around dissemination of best practice.

Discussion