RDA has a historical Interest Group on Reproducibility that was active primarily between 2014-2016 and led by Bernard Schutz and Victoria Stodden. The charge of the original group is “to advance and enable reproducibility in research based on or producing datasets. Our goals are to provide community based recommendations and infrastructure solutions, doing so in coordination with the other RDA Working and Interest Groups where appropriate.” The group primarily focused on efforts around the computational infrastructure necessary for reproducible research.
In recent years, several efforts at RDA addressed various aspects of reproducibility, including curation (CURE-FAIR WG), software (FAIR4RS WG, Software Source Code IG), infrastructure (Preservation e-Infrastructure IG), discipline-specific requirements (Reproducible Health Data Services WG), and more. These groups have produced recommendations and other outputs and helped shape the conversation about, and the practice of, reproducibility. At the same time, a good number of efforts to advance reproducibility – in terms of technology, infrastructure, policies, guidelines, and education – are taking place outside RDA.
At the RDA 20th Plenary in March 2023, a discussion was held about reestablishing the Reproducibility IG in a modern incarnation at a session on “Computational Reproducibility: What’s Next for RDA?”. At the meeting, attendees heard about efforts inside and outside RDA and agreed that the historical Reproducibility IG should be reestablished. Per RDA process, the charter needs to be revised, and four interim co-chairs are leading revision which was posted for community review (24 May, 2023 to 24 June, 2023).
