Developing an Executable Paper With the Python in Heliophysics Community

Abstract

The reproducibility crisis was sparked five years ago by a Nature survey that revealed most researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments (Baker, 2016). Although the severity of the crisis is still being debated, it has spurred researchers to include reproducibility and open science practices in their work. To that end, the Python in Heliophysics Community (PyHC) encourages members of the heliophysics community to create "executable papers," which are interactive pieces of software that combine text, data, and code to enable readers to reproduce every step taken to arrive at a publication's conclusions. We describe the development of an executable paper-in this case, one centered around magnetopause boundary crossings in satellite data-our coordination efforts between scientists and software developers, and the current technology that makes this possible. We aim to promote this novel paper format and be an example to the heliophysics community of how scientists and software developers can work together to produce research that is transparent and reproducible.

Advocating for Equality of Contribution: The Research Software Engineer (RSE) (Heliophysics Decadal Survey 2024)

“…A recent executable paper demonstrates the efficiency possible when scientists, RSEs and SEs work together. Polson et al (2022) created a science workflow combining multiple python packages in an online containerized environment for scientists to implement in a complex model-data comparison effort in magnetospheric physics. Without the RSEs and SEs on the team, the scientist would have required a much longer time investment to be able to accomplish the same work.…”