A research institution framework for publishing open code to enable reproducible science

Abstract

Reproducible science is greatly aided by open publishing of scientific computer code. There are also many institutional benefits for encouraging the publication of scientific code, but there are also institutional considerations around intellectual property and risk. We discuss questions around scientific code publishing from the perspective of a research organisation asking: who will be involved, how should code be licensed, where should code be published, how to get credit, what standards, and what costs? In reviewing advice and evidence relevant to these questions we propose a research institution framework for publishing open scientific code to enable reproducible science.