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Two steps forward, one step back: A reluctant open data science transformation at the US EPA
Citation:
Hollister, J. Two steps forward, one step back: A reluctant open data science transformation at the US EPA. RStudio Webinar: Scaling Data Science with R and Open Source at the EPA, NA, November 04, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
Open science is a way of conducting science that has all components of the scientific process open and available, including data, papers, and even the information technology resources used. This is important because it allows others to access our research, build on that work, and reproduce our findings. However, in strictly controlled federal information technology workspaces using many of the open science tools can be challenging. In this presentation, I discuss several open science tools, their implementation in lakes research at a USEPA ecological research facility, the problems we encountered using these novel tools in a federal information technology workspace and how we have worked to overcome these problems. The results of our efforts are important as they are a demonstration that open science tools are compatible with the rules and regulations governing software, code, and data in the federal government, they provide examples for other federal agencies attempting to implement open science approaches, and they show that perseverance and collaboration across the agency does in fact move our scientific practice forward.
Description:
Open science relies on improving the accessibility of all aspects of the research process including code, data, and manuscripts. The tools and concepts that help facilitate this may include open source software, proper licensing, collaboration platforms, and novel modes of publishing. At the US Environmental Protection Agency, researchers have been attempting to embrace open science and utilize many of these tools, including R and RStudio, but progress has been slow. In this talk, we will present a users perspective on several of these topics, implementation pain points, and how we overcame these challenges.