Karthik Ram
Git can facilitate greater reproducibility and increased transparency in science
University of California, Berkeley
reproducibility hallmark good science maintaining high degree transparency scientific reporting essential gaining trust credibility within scientific community also facilitating development new ideas sharing data computer code associated publications becoming increasingly common motivated partly response data deposition requirements journals mandates funders despite increase transparency still difficult reproduce build upon findings scientific publications without access complete workflow version control systems vcs long used maintain code repositories software industry finding new applications science one open source vcs git provides lightweight yet robust framework ideal managing full suite research outputs datasets statistical code figures lab notes manuscripts individual researchers git provides powerful way track compare versions retrace errors explore new approaches structured manner maintaining full audit trail larger collaborative efforts git git hosting services make possible everyone work asynchronously merge contributions time maintaining complete authorship trail paper provide overview git along usecases highlight tool leveraged make science reproducible transparent foster new collaborations support novel uses