Reproducible and Open GIScience

The prompt for this blog post is:

• `To what extent does open source GIS help solve the problems of the reproducibility crisis for geography? How?
• Are there problems with reproducibility and replicability in geography that open source GIS cannot help solve?`

The idea of a reproducibility crisis is introduced in a TED Talk by Dr. Rachel Ainsworth, who mentions that journals may push scientists to leave out certain information to create “simpler” articles. This trend seems to be the main cause of the crisis, which Dr. Ainsworth says is characterized by an inability for researchers to reproduce past experiments by themselves or other scientists. She also implies that the crisis is exacerbated by a fear of having publications retracted due to errors which could be discovered if data were shared publically.

Open Source GIS can help somewhat with the crisis by allowing researchers who wish to reproduce studies from other scientists to see their code and any steps which may have otherwise been opaque in their decision-making. With an open source model, it is also likely easier for researchers to add to R packages or other forms of software to improve them (Rey 2009), which may shift power in the development of GIS away from corporations or journals. The problem of researchers not being able to reproduce their own studies, which was also introduced by Dr. Ainsworth, may also be helped by using open source software which does not paywall users. Using a form of version control such as GitHub may also assist with recalling the exact steps which went into a GIS analysis, for it allows one to see previous versions and track changes in files. Maintaining a GitHub site or making data otherwise available, such as on DataDryad, increases the “transparency and clarity” which are integral to the concept of reproducibility (NASEM 2019).

A problem with the reproducibility crisis which may not be solved by open source GIS is the “publish or perish” culture to which Dr. Ainsworth refers in the TED Talk. Journals still may control the income and status of researchers even with improvements in data transparency. Creating communities based around improving open source software is beneficial for researchers, but there is still an issue if journals cause those researchers to be constantly pressured to submit publications and pay fees for open access.

NASEM (ational Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine). 2019. Reproducibility and Replicability in Science. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. DOI: 10.17226/25303

Rey, S. J. 2009. Show me the code: Spatial analysis and open source. Journal of Geographical Systems 11 (2):191–207. DOI: 10.1007/s10109-009-0086-8

Dr. Rachel Ainsworth discusses open science culture: https://youtu.be/c-bemNZ-IqA