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UPDATE: We have successfully completed our first workshop!

Delft workshop participants

On the 30th of May 2024, the CODECHECK-NL team organised its first roadshow event in Delft. The event marks the beginning of a series of four workshops to be conducted across the Netherlands, where we carry out live codechecks with authors and reviewers, while also training a new batch of codecheckers across universities in the Netherlands.

The Delft event kicked off in the morning with 20 participants and members of the CODECHECK-NL team. We began with a short introduction to the project and its scope by Frank Ostermann (PI for the project, based at the University of Twente), followed by an introduction to codechecking by Stephen Eglen, one of the founders of CODECHECK, and a computational neuroscientist based at the University of Cambridge. Stephen’s presentation (which can be found here) introduced the philosophy behind codecheck, and the importance of the concept of “good enough” in facilitating code reproducibility. The introduction was followed by a live demo codecheck, conducted on a project submitted by Filip Surma of Delft University of Technology. Curious to see what a CODECHECK certificate looks like? See Filip’s certificate here.

Following lunch and the successful codecheck of Filip’s project, in collaboration with the participants, in the afternoon we moved into breakout sessions, codechecking three more projects in smaller groups, with authors also present during the process. Three more successful codechecks later, participants had a much clearer picture of what codechecks are, how the process works, and how easy or difficult it can be to run or reuse someone else’s code!

All these points were touched upon in our final reflection session, where we considered questions of how codechecks could be incorporated into the research and publishing workflow, and ideas for the sustainability of codechecking. Some important issues were raised, such as the importance of institutional support, how to recognise codecheck efforts for both authors and reviewers. Some interesting solutions were also proposed, like the concept of ‘codecheck buddies’, or making codechecks a service researchers could avail of, having a dedicated ‘codechecker’ based at a journal. The discussion was finally only concluded because it was time to leave the room!

Do you find the topics of code reuse, reproducibility and learning a hands-on skill interesting? Then join us at one of our next workshops! We are hosting our next event at the University of Twente on 26th of September 2024, and another at the Erasmus University Rotterdam on the 28th of November 2024. Save the (tentative) dates, and stay tuned for updates!

Our call for papers for the Delft worksop

Are you a researcher in engineering interested in reproducible code and Open Science? We have the perfect opportunity for you!

As part of our newly launched NWO project CHECK-NL, we are looking for researchers from the field of engineering at a Dutch knowledge institution or university who would like their papers or projects to be “codechecked” during a live, one-day code-checking workshop on 30th May 2024, at the X-building in TU Delft. A codecheck is a light-touch independent peer review to check that your code and data can generate the computational results in your paper or project (see more details here).

You can participate as a codechecker (a person reviewing code), or by submitting your own work to be checked (or both if you are up for it!)

Anyone from the engineering sciences is welcome to participate in the workshop at Delft. Participation is free of cost and includes lunch. We have limited funding (on a first come, first served basis) for reimbursing train tickets for PhD (non-AiO) students.

If you cannot make this workshop, there will be further opportunities later in the year as we plan three more workshops around the Netherlands.

What do I get if I submit my code?

A codechecker will work with you during the session to check whether your code and data can be run by others to generate the same or similar results.

The codechecker will work with you to resolve any issues found during the codecheck, and make your code as reproducible as possible!

Upon completion, your paper will receive a codecheck certificate that confirms your results could be reproduced. This can be shared, for example, with potential journal editors, to enhance the visibility and reproducibility of your work.

By participating, you contribute towards making science more open and transparent AND increase the visibility of your own research!

Sounds good! What should I do?

Are you interested in submitting code or data for this event, and helping to promote code reproducibility? Send an email to codechecknl@gmail.com by 30th April 2024 with a brief description of your paper/project, and links to your code and data. This could be code related to:

In each case, the code and data underlying the paper should be openly available, or you plan to make them available once the paper is published.

Selected papers/projects will be notified in early May 2024.

Would you instead like to participate in the workshop and learn how to codecheck? All participants are invited to register on the event page and join the workshop.

For questions related to the NWO project CHECK-NL, please contact Frank Ostermann (f.o.ostermann@utwente.nl)