As a scientist, you will be asked to peer-review research manuscripts and associated code to assess the quality and reproducibility of the research and the authors’ interpretations of the results. To help develop this skill and to practice applying the coding concepts we learn in class, you will choose a manuscript from the primary literature that utilized a significant scripting component to simulate, process, or analyze their data.

Imaging the editor of a journal has asked you to review the article, but focus your review on the associated code. You will write a review of the article, focused on the associated code and your ability to reproduce the results presented in the published manuscript. Fully reproducing the results may not be feasible, but you should still discuss whether the authors provided what is necessary to do so (and if not, what was missing?).

Focus on helping the authors improve the code

Peer review is best when it is constructive. Our job as peer reviewers is to help the authors improve their paper and code.

Choosing the paper and code to review

The code you choose to review can range from a relatively small script to a large code base with hundreds of files of code.

Things go consider

• How easy was it for you to obtain, install, and run the code?
  • If you ran into road blocks, what were they, and what could the authors do differently to make their code easier to use?

Logistics

You will write your code review in a markdown-formatted README.md file and version-control it with Git

How to submit the paper/code you propose

Use the same repo to write your review