Comment by csdvrx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by csdvrx | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting!

For replicable research, in uni I once built interactive visualizations from a R studio source that contained the data + the code but that resulted in multiple outputs (html embedding the R notebook and markdown files, Microsoft Word, PDF...)

Technically, it was quite simple, but it enabled interesting usecases: I could send my homework to my professor in an easily readable format, but if he wanted to dig deeper, he could also check I did everything right, and he could also alter the data to check if it kept working: using the html file, he just had to click to the source notebook at the bottom to start tweaking.

It would be wonderful if scientific publishing moved to something like that, where the publication would be a subset (ex: Word output) of a process that everyone could inspect and alter.

Of course, as datasets are becoming the most valuable ingredient in a big soup, I fear this will take a while to happen.

BTW op: your dynamic examples like https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/quarto-dev... are not working in my browser (Edge)

> It would be wonderful if scientific publishing moved to something like that, where the publication would be a subset (ex: Word output) of a process that everyone could inspect and alter.

> Of course, as datasets are becoming the most valuable ingredient in a big soup, I fear this will take a while to happen.

even though it would be wonderful, having worked in this industry i don't see it ever moving to such a system of communication (not on any significant level at least).

publishers are a middleman too deeply entrenched to simply cut out, and anything resembling a threat to their status will get bought out under the guise of 'look we're innovating here' and then die a slow silent death.

You don't threaten them, you join them by creating a journal like PLoS, fully open access - let's call it "Replicable Science".

Require a viral license (like the GPL) for all published content, to ensure derivate work using either the data or the code must also be made available under similar conditions but for both the data and the code, with a clause allowing publication to non-open access journals provided that the data and the code of the preprint is published on a sister journal (let's call it "Replicable Science Reprints") say 1 month after the publication to the non-open access journal.

If you manage to reach an impact factor high enough to incentivize would-be author to submit to this journal, it would be quite hard to kill!

Also, the citations would increase the IF over time, by sheer virtue of being open access, and encouraging derivative work.

yes you could launch a journal like that, and given enough funds -- as in plenty of millions -- and a strong network of people involved it might even become moderately successful, but the workflow wouldn't become widely adopted (=no change on a significant level).

existing subscription journals would have no incentive to allow republication at all, even less so with a measly 1 month embargo period.

citations and high IFs don't depend on permissive licensing and openness -- they are more easily reached via established subscription publishers who already have the supply chain to serve their content to thousands of subscribing organizations and millions of academics.

i mean OA/OS itself is a good example here. it's been an ongoing project for some 20 years, and granted there has been change, it's also been ample time for the industry to adapt to and limit this change. so now you have read-and-publish agreements (=more expensive subscriptions basically), transformative agreements (=we'll go full OA once you've lined our pockets enough), etc.

meanwhile there are plenty of journals, initiatives, manifestos, platforms -- PLoS stable of journals, other publishers, all the various *rxivs popping up, COS and OSF -- advocating hard for OA/OS but they're ultimately limited to carving a niche for themselves with little effect on the wider system itself.

and achieving even that little effect has involved an ungodly amount of policy changes and introducing mandates that favor this one particular mode of communication.

so yeah i don't think this will catch on either, not in my lifetime at least.

> they're ultimately limited to carving a niche for themselves with little effect on the wider system itself.

You have already noticed some of the changes, but you're not thinking long term enough.

Look at what's happening in universities, not for existing researchers, as they will eventually be replaced.

I must admit I'm a bit disconnected as I left a couple of years before COVID, but already back then, students do their lit review using google. If something is not easily accessible, unless it's a must-known paper, they won't bother with even scihub (and I'm talking about scihub because even if the university provides access to most journals, most people don't bother with that as it requires being on campus or using a weird VPN)

In classes, there're a lot exercises based on replication: try to get the same results as this or that to learn about this method. For now, it's mostly done with books, but a new trend is using published datasets to level up.

I'm not saying you aren't partially right, but things are changing fast!

Thanks for the heads-up re: Edge! All of those should be working now.

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