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avatar for Felix Hoffmann

Felix Hoffmann

University Freiburg
Mathematics & Computational Neuroscience Student
Freiburg, Germany

Contact Me

I recently participated in this year's Google Summer of Code program
to work on the reproducible research tool "Sumatra". In open source
development since 2011, the software aspires to be an automated lab
notebook for computational experiments, capturing and displaying
provenance information about processes within a computational research
project. In its current state, Sumatra's functionality is tailored
towards the management of simulation records, enabling a researcher to
reproduce their own results.

However, the software is predestined as a tool to promote and support
the sharing of computational research data. My project constituted a
first major step in this direction; by implementing an equally
powerful mode of managing a computational project focusing on the
involved data objects, as opposed to the single computational
processes, the software gets ever closer to fully supporting Open Data
projects. An interface that, for example, uploads research data to
figshare, while simultaneously publishing the code that was used to
create the data on GitHub, is at this point perfectly imaginable.

In this stage of the development of the software, however,
communicating and promoting the project is of crucial importance. We
want more people to try out and use the software in their research. We
would love for people to contribute more actively on the mailing list
and to the code itself. After my involvement through the Summer of
Code program, I am now determined not only to continue contributing to
the software, but also to actively promote Sumatra as an open and
reproducible research tool.

At OpenCon, I hope to talk to other attendees about their Open Data
projects, platforms, policies and initiatives or how what they are
doing might be related to Open Data! Maybe you know of a similar tool?
How can Sumatra help promoting the Open Data citation standards that
you're involved with? Maybe your platform is just what Sumatra needs
and vice versa? Or maybe you're just interested in learning how Sumatra
works? I would be happy to talk to you in any case!

While admittedly being very excited about Sumatra and its potential to
help promote Open Data projects at the moment, I'm also, just as you,
a student and early stage researcher and probably share some of your
struggles. How can I be open in the work that I do? Currently drafting
my first research article, this question is especially relevant to me.
Can I ask for my the peer review to be open? Where do I best publish
my data? What about licenses? Can't I just upload my thesis? Talk to
me about being an early stage researcher and trying to be open in your
work, I would be very happy if you do! I'm looking forward to meeting
all of you!

Licensed CC BY 4.0