Comment on:
The following comment refers to this/these guideline(s)
Guideline 7
Cross-phase quality assurance
Researchers carry out each step of the research process lege artis. When research findings are made publicly available (in the narrower sense of publication, but also in a broader sense through other communication channels), the quality assurance mechanisms used are always explained. This applies especially when new methods are developed.
Explanations:
Continuous quality assurance during the research process includes, in particular, compliance with subject-specific standards and established methods, processes such as equipment calibration, the collection, processing and analysis of research data, the selection and use of research software, software development and programming, and the keeping of laboratory notebooks.
If researchers have made their findings publicly available and subsequently become aware of inconsistencies or errors in them, they make the necessary corrections. If the inconsistencies or errors constitute grounds for retracting a publication, the researchers will promptly request the publisher, infrastructure provider, etc. to correct or retract the publication and make a corresponding announcement. The same applies if researchers are made aware of such inconsistencies or errors by third parties.
The origin of the data, organisms, materials and software used in the research process is disclosed and the reuse of data is clearly indicated; original sources are cited. The nature and the scope of research data generated during the research process are described. Research data are handled in accordance with the requirements of the relevant subject area. The source code of publicly available software must be persistent, citable and documented. Depending on the particular subject area, it is an essential part of quality assurance that results or findings can be replicated or confirmed by other researchers (for example with the aid of a detailed description of materials and methods).
Guideline 13
Providing public access to research results
As a rule, researchers make all results available as part of scientific/academic discourse. In specific cases, however, there may be reasons not to make results publicly available (in the narrower sense of publication, but also in a broader sense through other communication channels); this decision must not depend on third parties. Researchers decide autonomously – with due regard for the conventions of the relevant subject area – whether, how and where to disseminate their results. If it has been decided to make results available in the public domain, researchers describe them clearly and in full. Where possible and reasonable, this includes making the research data, materials and information on which the results are based, as well as the methods and software used, available and fully explaining the work processes. Software programmed by researchers themselves is made publicly available along with the source code. Researchers provide full and correct information about their own preliminary work and that of others.
Explanations:
In the interest of transparency and to enable research to be referred to and reused by others, whenever possible researchers make the research data and principal materials on which a publication is based available in recognised archives and repositories in accordance with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). Restrictions may apply to public availability in the case of patent applications. If self-developed research software is to be made available to third parties, an appropriate licence is provided.
In line with the principle of “quality over quantity”, researchers avoid splitting research into inappropriately small publications. They limit the repetition of content from publications of which they were (co-)authors to that which is necessary to enable the reader to understand the context. They cite results previously made publicly available unless, in exceptional cases, this is deemed unnecessary by the general conventions of the discipline.
What is the correct interpretation of the sentence: “Software programmed by researchers themselves is made publicly available along with the source code”?
The sentence “Software programmed by researchers themselves is made publicly available along with the source code” is intrinsically linked to the concept of enabling public availability as introduced in Guideline 7 (“Cross-phase quality assurance”). Enabling public availability can – in a narrower sense – take the form of publication, but in a broader sense it can also happen “through other communication channels”, as stated in Guideline 7.
The scope available for enabling public availability depends on the individual case and can be organised in different ways and vis-à-vis different groups of individuals, including restricted groups or even limited to a single person and on request. The purpose of the regulation is to take into account the notion of replication as far as this is possible and reasonable.
If this broad understanding of enabling public availability is taken as a basis for Guideline 13, too, the self-programmed software and source code do not necessarily have to be published, put on the internet or otherwise made accessible to the general public or the professional public without restriction.
The comment belongs to the following categories:
GL7 (General) , GL13 (General)
Keywords:
research softwarepublic accesspublicationreplication/reproduction