A Research Institution Framework for Publishing Open Code to Enable Reproducible Science

Reproducible science is greatly aided by open publishing of scientific computer code. Recently, a group of staff at Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research wanted to establish an institutional GitHub account so that we would have a place to publish the code we were generating. However, while there are many institutional benefits for encouraging the publication of scientific code, there are also institutional considerations around things such as intellectual property and risk. Therefore, taking the perspective of a research institution, we tried to understand what were the benefits and obstacles to open code publishing by asking ourselves: 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.