Experiences with Reproducibility: Case Studies from Scientific Workflows

Abstract

Reproducible research is becoming essential for science to ensure transparency and for building trust. Additionally, reproducibility provides the cornerstone for sharing of methodology that can improve efficiency. Although several tools and studies focus on computational reproducibility, we need a better understanding about the gaps, issues, and challenges for enabling reproducibility of scientific results beyond the computational stages of a scientific pipeline. In this paper, we present five different case studies that highlight the reproducibility needs and challenges under various system and environmental conditions. Through the case studies, we present our experiences in reproducing different types of data and methods that exist in an experimental or analysis pipeline. We examine the human aspects of reproducibility while highlighting the things that worked, that did not work, and that could have worked better for each of the cases. Our experiences capture a wide range of scenarios and are applicable to a much broader audience who aim to integrate reproducibility in their everyday pipelines.