RSS Reprothon


What is it all about?

Reproducibility is important across all research, whether this is open access articles, repeatable results or giving access to code and data used for a paper. However, if you have ever tried to rerun old code and it has failed, you are not alone!

So what can we do maximise the longevity, and therefore reproducibility, of our code? That is what the ASG Reprothon series is trying to answer. We have hosted multiple Reprothons over the last few years and this is our first time running a reprothon session at the Royal Statistical Society conference. We are collecting data to provide robust evidence on what factors are determining the longevity of code.


In our Reprothon, we are aiming to determine what factors affect the reproducibility of R code.

To do this, contributors work through queries taken from StackOverflow, checking whether or not the accepted answer still works. Each participant will submit their results through a simple form which will go into a master spreadsheet along with details such as the package used and any error that occured.


We will track our progress live, and once enough data is collated the organisers will analyse this data and produce a report with our findings, with the aim to provide researchers with guidelines to ensure their code remains usable beyond publishing.


So what is a hackathon?

A hackathon, very simply, is an event where lots of people come together to work on a coding or programming problem.

If you want a look at what a previous hackathon for MozSprint was like, our founder Francesca Mancini shared her experience in 2017 as a blog.


In addition, Dr Maria Kamouyiaros (who was instrumental in the web design and organisation of our last two Reprothons!) has written this piece on code reproducibility.


The details & how to take part

The Reprothon will re-open on 14th September 2022 at 12:00 BST from 15:50 - 16:50, we will be running a live session at the RSS where you can join us, work alongside others, and chat.

The session plan is as follows:


If you would like to get involved, enter your email address in the subscribe box below. We will then send you an email with your unique Reprothon ID.


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You can also join our Slack channel if you want to keep up to date with what's going on, and ask questions.

For full details check out "How to Sign Up" and "How to Get Started" below!


Requirements

This event is open to anyone interested! However, as it will be focused on testing code there are a few requirements you might need to consider: