A scientist is sitting in the cafeteria, we ear people chatting: Do you know, you need to provide your data when you publish? The data should be in a state where it can be re-used. And each scientist is responsible for dealing with his data. The scientist says: “That is bullshit: who is saying that?” Our main funders (DFG) Our favorite publishers Our employer, the university, is, too!
see copyrighted material here: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6352/654.1 In brief, a paper was retracted from science because the raw data could not be presented. The computer containing the data has apparently been stolen and no backup existed. There are other similar stories on retractionwatch.com (https://retractionwatch.com/2016/02/23/we-are-living-in-hell-authors-retract-2nd-paper-due-to-missing-raw-data/, https://retractionwatch.com/2017/01/20/boom-headshot-disputed-video-game-paper-retracted/). It is not always clear if there were misconduct, but it seems the absence of data makes it impossible for researchers to prove they did not misconduct.
Narrator’s voice: Once upon a time, in the kingdom of academia, there worked a scientist. S/he worked night and day to collect the best, most reliable data in his/her field. Months of hard work went by. Until one day an evil spell was cast upon the kingdom. All the the research data with no backup should be lost forever! “Why, oh why did I not backup my data?!” the researcher cried.
Tim working at his computer. Two others speaking: What is Tim doing? Meta-analysis. whaa Cool, he is comparing his results with the data of other scientists got all over the world during the last 10 years? No that’s what the computer of Amanda, who is drinking coffee there is being doing… Tim is just trying to compare his data, with the data he obtained two years ago. Slogan You want to manage your data like a pro, ask a pro ##questions:
In 2007, I entered a lab doing mainly one experiment: olfactory learning assay in fruit fly. The output of the experiment is the number of flies choosing one or the other odor, recorded manually on spreadsheets. For the 14 people in the lab, they were approximately 20 different spreadsheets around. We managed to create one tidy template for all experiments in about 6 months. Interestingly, it took 2-3 of us to design the first draft, we then gathered feedback from the whole group, get a second version and so on.
During the second week of march, I had the chance to participate to two interesting meetings: the open science barcamp and the premierquality seminar. Both events have some online archive with results of discussion for the barcamp (https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/oscibar2018) and slides of the presentations for the seminar (https://www.bihealth.org/de/quest-center/projekte/premier/news/). I was stroked by the similarity in the discourses, not only concerning the problems discussed but also the solutions proposed. Here is the first of a series of blog about the parallel between the two events and communities.
Copyright (c) Julien Colomb 2018, distributed under CC-BY 4.0
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