HESS Opinions: Repeatable research: what hydrologists can learn from the Duke cancer research scandal

Fienen, Michael N.; Bakker, Mark

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-3739-2016

Articles | Volume 20, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-3739-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

HESS Opinions 2016

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-3739-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 9

Opinion article

|

12 Sep 2016

Opinion article |

| 12 Sep 2016

HESS Opinions: Repeatable research: what hydrologists can learn from the Duke cancer research scandal

Michael N. Fienen and Mark Bakker

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Final revised paper (published on 12 Sep 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 20 May 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'There is more to transparency in research than open-source codes of data processing', Olaf Arie Cirpka, 26 May 2016
- AC2: 'Indeed, repeatability depends on more the using open-source software', Michael Fienen, 06 Jun 2016
  - RC3: 'Repeatability not only important for review, but also for follow-up studies by others', Wolfgang Nowak, 07 Jun 2016
    - AC3: 'When the public pays for the research', Michael Fienen, 11 Jun 2016
RC2: 'An overdue statement of an important opinion!', Wolfgang Nowak, 03 Jun 2016
- AC1: 'We agree - good to add some context on transparency', Michael Fienen, 06 Jun 2016
RC4: 'Repeatable research', Alberto Bellin, 11 Jun 2016
- AC5: 'repeatable, reproducible, and uncertainty', Michael Fienen, 13 Jun 2016
RC5: 'A welcomed and important contribution that could be more differentiated, however.', Sebastian Geiger, 13 Jun 2016
- AC4: 'Expanding on data and other scientific scandals', Michael Fienen, 13 Jun 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (01 Aug 2016) by Alberto Guadagnini

AR by Michael Fienen on behalf of the Authors (25 Aug 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (31 Aug 2016) by Alberto Guadagnini

AR by Michael Fienen on behalf of the Authors (31 Aug 2016)

Short summary

In the field of cancer research, a scandal occurred at Duke University in the USA in which independent researchers were unable to repeat analysis performed by another group. This led to recommendations by the university and governing organizations to motivate the use of scripting languages to enhance repeatability of research. The hydrology community can easily adopt similar protocols to enhance the integrity of our data analysis and modeling.