The need to keep accurate track of what you've calculated and how has raised it head yet again, this time in Nature.
As analysis of huge data sets with computers becomes an integral tool of research, how should researchers document and report their use of software? This question was brought to the fore when the release of e-mails stolen from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, generated a media fuss in 2009, and has been widely discussed, including in this journal. The issue lies at the heart of scientific endeavour: how detailed an information trail should researchers leave so that others can reproduce their findings?
The question is perhaps most pressing in the field of genomics and sequence analysis. As biologists process larger and more complex data sets and publish only the results, some argue that the reporting of how those data were analysed is often insufficient.
Take a recent survey by comparative genomist Anton Nekrutenko at Pennsylvania State University in University Park and computer scientist James Taylor of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The pair examined 14 sequencing papers published last year in Science, Nature and Nature Genetics, and found that the publications often lacked essential details needed to reproduce the analysis — the papers referenced merely bioinformatics software, for example, without noting the version used or the value of key parameters |
Sounds like a good opportunity for PTC to start flying the flag. It's also worth looking at what is needed to really make Mathcad a true concept-to-publication tool, perhaps allowing publishers to use interactive worksheets on their websites like Valery does (as part of a 'premium' package, of course). I don't know what future directions PTC intend for Mathcad, but it would be nice to see the GUI improved to take into account the increasingly common tablet interface, particularly wrt to hand-writing and drawing.
I put forward an outline of the concept back in The Real Forum - see first link in particular.
Stuart
