''ReScience C'' is a journal created in 2015 by Nicolas Rougier and Konrad Hinsen with the aim of publishing researchers' attempts to replicate computations made by other authors, using independently written,

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

(FOSS), with an open process of

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...

. The journal states that requiring the replication software to be free and open-source ensures the

reproducibility Reproducibility, closely related to replicability and repeatability, is a major principle underpinning the scientific method. For the findings of a study to be reproducible means that results obtained by an experiment or an observational study or ...

of the original research.

Creation

''ReScience C'' was created in 2015 by Nicolas Rougier and Konrad Hinsen in the context of the

replication crisis The replication crisis, also known as the reproducibility or replicability crisis, refers to the growing number of published scientific results that other researchers have been unable to reproduce or verify. Because the reproducibility of empir ...

of the early 2010s, in which concern about difficulty in replicating (different data or details of method) or reproducing (same data, same method) peer-reviewed, published research papers was widely discussed. ''ReScience Cs scope is computational research, with the motivation that journals rarely require the provision of source code, and when source code is provided, it is rarely checked against the results claimed in the research article.

Policies and methods

The scope of ''ReScience C'' is mainly focussed on researchers' attempts to replicate computations made by other authors, using independently written,

(FOSS). Articles are submitted using the "issues" feature of a

git Git () is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. It is often used to control source code by programmers who are developing software collaboratively. Design goals of Git include speed, data integrity, and suppor ...

repository run by

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

, together with other online archiving services, including

Zenodo Zenodo is a general-purpose open repository developed under the European OpenAIRE program and operated by CERN. It allows researchers to deposit research papers, data sets, research software, reports, and any other research related digital art ...

and Software Heritage.

Peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...

takes place publicly in the same "issues" online format. In 2020, ''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'' reported on the results of ''ReScience Cs "Ten Years' Reproducibility Challenge", in which scientists were asked to try reproducing the results from peer-reviewed articles that they had published at least ten years earlier, using the same data and software if possible, updated to a modern software environment and free licensing. , out of 35 researchers who had proposed to reproduce the results of 43 of their old articles, 28 reports had been written, 13 had been accepted after peer review and published, among which 11 documented successful reproductions.

References

External links

* free-licensed images by Nicolas Rougier, co-editor of ''ReScience C'' {{Authority control English-language journals Metascience Creative Commons Attribution-licensed journals Multidisciplinary scientific journals