[CIG-MC] AGU's new data policy

[Thorsten Becker]

The way I have interpreted AGU's guidelines for geodynamic studies as AGU
editor is to not ask for archiving of model output, but to ask for general
access to all material that would be needed to recreate that output, or
some simpler version of it that is proof of concept. I.e. input data, input
files, and a DOI to version of code, for example, if a community code is
used.

The general idea is, of course, to make things reproducible, and AGU and
Wiley are among those who realize that this can cause problems, and are
working on solutions with the community.

One particular issue is that I have not asked for verification that results
are actually reproducible, and taken authors assurances that codes will be
shared at face value (besides when the publications were of technical
nature, and we ask reviewers to actually try to download and run the
software, for example (which usually never works)). I think that part might
change, in that publishers may ask for a code access link and somehow
archive this.

I can also see some solutions akin to asking for a Docker set up, archived
somewhere, that will allow anyone to rerun the models. There are
interesting challenges involved, but in the end, I think moving to more
openness and reproducibility is a good thing, and the success of CIG shows
how some issues that were raised before we moved into this model resolved
themselves. Things are perfect, but we're making progress.

My personal experience with publishing numerical stuff in highly visible
journals is that, within a week, there are people actually asking to get
all the code and all the input files to rerun our models, and we've always
shared all of our stuff, of course. I realize that this is a
significant workload (particularly for my grad students who actually put
this stuff together...) and somehow AGU and publishers need to do more to
support people with large data volumes, seismological inversions being
another example.


Thorsten Becker - UTIG & DGS, JSG, UT Austin
<http://www-udc.ig.utexas.edu/external/becker/>

On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 7:17 AM, Scott King <sdk at vt.edu> wrote:

>
> AGU journals have a new data policy requiring that all the data from the
> work must be in a publicly accessible repository.  In general I think this
> is a good thing.   They provide several possible solutions.   From the
> editor letter…
>
> "*AGU requires that data needed to understand and build upon the
> published research be available in public repositories following **best
> practices
> <http://publications.agu.org/author-resource-center/publication-policies/data-policy/data-policy-faq/>.
> This includes an explicit statement in the Acknowledgments section on where
> users can access or find the data for this paper. Citations to archived
> data should be included in your reference list and all references,
> including those cited in the supplement, should be included in the main
> reference list. All listed references must be available to the general
> reader by the time of acceptance.*”
>
> They list several possible repositories, none of which seem appropriate
> for 2.9 TB of CicomS results. Set aside the philosophical issue that model
> results are not “data” (they don’t accept that).   I have the output used
> in the published figures down to a reasonable size but. I’m curious what
> others are doing.  Has anyone else run into this yet?  (If not you will.)
>  I’m curious if there is a community consensus regarding a repository where
> all geodynamics results would/could end up, as opposed to ending up with
> them scattered across 3-4 (or more) potential repositories.  Maybe that’s
> not something to worry about, but since this is new and to me at least I’ve
> had no time to think it through, I’m curious what others are doing.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Scott
>
>
>
>
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