One of the pathways by which the scientific community confirms the validity of a new scientific discovery is by repeating the research that produced it.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
From the "Reproducibility and Replicability in Science" consensus report 2019

The National Institutes of Health and other grant funding institutions now require researchers to address rigor and reproducibility in a structured way before their applications are reviewed. These processes instituted will strengthen the rigor and transparency of the research and will improve the reproducibility and replicability of results.

For a good synopsis of the report quoted above, we recommend reading the 2019 article, "New report examines reproducibility and replicability in science."

Resources

Definitions

  •  What is reproducibility?

    Reproducibility refers to the ability of a researcher to duplicate the results of a prior study using the same materials and procedures as were used by the original investigator. So in an attempt to reproduce a published statistical analysis, a second researcher might use the same raw data to build the same analysis files and implement the same statistical analysis to determine whether they yield the same results.

    Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Perspectives on Robust and Reliable Science (PDF): Report of the Subcommittee on Replicability in Science Advisory Committee to the National Science Foundation Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences

  • What is Replicability?

    Replicability refers to the ability of a researcher to duplicate the results of a prior study if the same procedures are followed but new data are collected. That is, a failure to replicate a scientific finding is commonly thought to occur when one study documents relations between two or more variables and a subsequent attempt to implement the same operations fails to yield the same relations with the new data.

    Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Perspectives on Robust and Reliable Science (PDF): Report of the Subcommittee on Replicability in Science Advisory Committee to the National Science Foundation Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences

Tips for Reproducibility

One way to plan for reproducibility is to make sure your documentation includes the following information. Some of this will be implemented within your project directory structures which will improve the portability of the data, code, and scripts.

  1. Plan for reproducibility before you start: Write a study plan or set up an electronic lab notebook
     
  2. Keep track of things: Track changes using version control and structure code and analytic results for easy discovery, document everything in a README file, and include contextual information and details about data sets needed for discovery, access, use, and reuse
     
  3. Report your research transparently: Share your protocols and write manuscripts collaboratively
     
  4. Archive & share your materials: Share and license your research products, and when the research is complete, submit the data and code to an open data repository
     

Download the "Reproducibility Resources & Tools" handout compiled by Countway Library.