4  Team work that fosters reproducibility

Research is increasingly being conducted in teams. The bigger and more complex the team, the more complicated it can be to work in a reproducible fashion. Thinking about how to set up a team to foster reproducibility is essential, because a bigger team can also mean that reproducibility becomes easier. If the whole team works together, their diverse skills will help in creating a thriving and reproducible research project.

In The Turing Way’s Guide to Planning a Community they discuss 8 steps, that work well for a broad range of research teams:

  1. Choose a Communication Platform (e.g. GitHub + Chat + Website)
  2. Provide a Project Summary File (e.g. README.md)
  3. Select a Code of Conduct
  4. Provide Contribution Guidelines and Interaction Pathways
  5. Create a Basic Management/Leadership Structure (roles)
  6. Provide Contact Details Wherever Useful (email address to role)
  7. Identify Failed Approaches, and Stop Them
  8. Have Documentation (e.g. a wiki) and Dissemination Plans for Your Project (e.g. publication on Zenodo)

Note that there are two important parts for thriving teams:

How is your team set up? Which of the 8 steps are unclear to you?