Transparency and reproducibility for quantitative research: Like the Layers of an Onion

Professor Ben Marwick from the University of Washington will be presenting on the increasingly important topic of reproducibility. The successful reproducibility of research is fundamental to its reliability, usefulness and value to the research community and to society. However, as the computational complexity of research increases, methods and tools for ensuring the reproducibility are yet to become mainstream. Ben will describe an emerging consensus on ways of improving the computational reproducibility of social and natural science research. A research result is defined here as reproducible when the same computational analysis steps performed on the same dataset consistently produces the same answer. This is possible when authors provide all the necessary data and the computer codes for another person to run the analysis again, re-creating the same results presented by the authors. Ben will describe a 'layered reproducibility' approach to organise the various technologies available to enhance reproducibility in terms of effort to implement and payoff. This approach has five layers and Ben will present their corresponding tools and technologies.

Ben Marwick is a Professor of Archaeology at the University of Washington. His main research activities combine models from evolutionary ecology with analyses of archaeological evidence to investigate past human behaviour. Specific interests include hominin dispersals into mainland Southeast Asia, forager technologies and ecology in Australia, mainland Southeast Asia and elsewhere. He analyses how archaeology engages with local and online communities, and with popular culture. Ben is also interested in techniques and methods for reproducible research and open science. He directs UW's interdisciplinary Minor in Data Science.

This presentation is part of the UOW Data and Decision Science Initiative.