A problem shared is a problem halved

Citation: Editor (2019/02/01) A problem shared is a problem halved. Nature Physics (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): 10.1038/s41567-019-0434-7
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1038/s41567-019-0434-7
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1038/s41567-019-0434-7
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): A problem shared is a problem halved
Download: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0434-7
Tagged: Computer Science (RSS) computational science (RSS)

Summary

Releasing artifacts (data and code) prior to publication comes with risks.

In 2009, a small controversy erupted when an independent team of researchers used publicly available data from the Fermi gamma-ray telescope to claim possible evidence for dark matter. The sticking point was that the paper written by the Fermi collaboration had not been published yet, so they had been 'scooped'. Some thought that this was a public relations disaster for the collaboration, but others hailed it as a step forward for open science.

Sharing artifacts is good for society (scientific reproducibility, accelerating pace of discovery) but can cost the individuals doing the sharing (time spent maintaining public data, not getting to publish first). It's not always possible, because of underspecified software environments.

This letter ends with a call for discussion