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There should be a Github for Academia where scientists open source their data & formulas the use to draw conclusions - people could comment and annotate on spec

There should be a Github for Academia where scientists open source their data & formulas the use to draw conclusions - people could comment and annotate on specific parts, fork & create pull requests, and file any issues they might have.

randomsearch 11y ago
There is widespread provision of data and software on computing science papers in academia. It's currently a piecemeal approach, which is a problem, but here's an example of how things are changing: http://conf.researchr.org/track/pldi2015/PLDI+2015+Artifact+Evaluation http://conf.researchr.org/track/pldi2015/PLDI+2015+Artifact+... Universities all over the world are working on repositories to store electronic resources such as data and code for the long-term. This is non-trivial, as data may need to be available for decades or even hundreds of years. Github, by contrast, has been around for 7 years. Regarding the idea of organising research in a more change-control fashion, that's a more radical change. Academia will move slowly, and rightly so, as research practices evolve and persists for hundreds of years; to adopt an idea based on a (relatively, very) new method of software development is hugely risky.
JupiterMoon 11y ago
This is called peer reviewed publication... It has happened for a few centuries now. It's not perfect and it can certainly be improved but it does exist.
NotOscarWilde 11y ago
Indeed, but it is critical to me (and I think I'm not the only one in academia for which it is so) that it uses the arXiv funding model -- donations to be sustainable -- and not the Github/Authorea model, where you pay for each private paper/repository you set up. --- It is interesting to note that as a programmer, I do not have that many issues with releasing partial or incomplete source code on Github, whereas as a computer scientist, I do not like to release partial or incomplete proofs at all. It might be because the academic community cares about reputation: if you get a reputation as a researcher that releases incorrect proofs, your career is over. In programming, as the names are attached to project much more loosely, such negative reputation is rare and people care much less.
cyphunk 11y ago
Not at all. There should bit git4chan for Academia where you can submit articles but never obtain attribution.

randomsearch 11y ago

There is widespread provision of data and software on computing science papers in academia. It's currently a piecemeal approach, which is a problem, but here's an example of how things are changing: http://conf.researchr.org/track/pldi2015/PLDI+2015+Artifact+Evaluation http://conf.researchr.org/track/pldi2015/PLDI+2015+Artifact+... Universities all over the world are working on repositories to store electronic resources such as data and code for the long-term. This is non-trivial, as data may need to be available for decades or even hundreds of years. Github, by contrast, has been around for 7 years. Regarding the idea of organising research in a more change-control fashion, that's a more radical change. Academia will move slowly, and rightly so, as research practices evolve and persists for hundreds of years; to adopt an idea based on a (relatively, very) new method of software development is hugely risky.

JupiterMoon 11y ago

This is called peer reviewed publication... It has happened for a few centuries now. It's not perfect and it can certainly be improved but it does exist.

NotOscarWilde 11y ago

Indeed, but it is critical to me (and I think I'm not the only one in academia for which it is so) that it uses the arXiv funding model -- donations to be sustainable -- and not the Github/Authorea model, where you pay for each private paper/repository you set up. --- It is interesting to note that as a programmer, I do not have that many issues with releasing partial or incomplete source code on Github, whereas as a computer scientist, I do not like to release partial or incomplete proofs at all. It might be because the academic community cares about reputation: if you get a reputation as a researcher that releases incorrect proofs, your career is over. In programming, as the names are attached to project much more loosely, such negative reputation is rare and people care much less.

cyphunk 11y ago

Not at all. There should bit git4chan for Academia where you can submit articles but never obtain attribution.