Working together to push science forward
Happy rOpenSci users can be found at
library(tidyverse) library(monkeylearn) This is a story (mostly) about how I started contributing to the rOpenSci package monkeylearn. I can’t promise any life flipturning upside down, but there will be a small discussion about git best practices which is almost as good 🤓. The tl;dr here is nothing novel but is something I wish I’d experienced firsthand sooner. That is, that tinkering with and improving on the code others have written is more rewarding for you and more valuable to others when you contribute it back to the original source....
rOpenSci’s package review system (aka onboarding) is one of our key activities to improve quality and sustainability of scientific R packages. The editorial team are constantly working towards improving the experience for both authors and reviewers. After our first year, we surveyed authors and reviewers who participated in our onboarding process to help us better understand what’s working well and where there is room for improvement. At the end of last year, we did so again, re-designing our survey so as to better track participant opinions year-to-year....
Dr. Noam Ross [@noamross on Twitter] is a disease ecologist at EcoHealth Alliance in NYC, as well as an editor for rOpenSci. Topics of discussion included Noam’s history with R and rOpenSci, working in a team-driven research environment, and inspirations for pushing research processes and rOpenSci projects in exciting new directions. KO: What is your name, job title, and how long have you been using R?...
The general struggle Something that will make life easier in the long-run can be the most difficult thing to do today. For coders, prioritising the long term may involve an overhaul of current practice and the learning of a new skill. This can be painful for a number of reasons: We have to admit to ourselves that we’ve been doing things inefficiently (i.e. wasting time). This makes us feel stupid and fosters a sense of missed opportunity: we could’ve done something cool with the time we’d have saved (e....
If you read my reflection #1 on rOpenSci Onboarding, then you know I see value in the Onboarding process. A LOT of value even. This post is about where that value lies. This question has important corollaries which I will explore here based on my experience as a reviewer of bowerbird: How is a package peer reviewer’s time best spent? When is the best time in a software package’s life cycle to undertake peer review?...
Happy rOpenSci users can be found at