Overview
Individuals taking this course should remember the definitions of the fundamental tenets of reproducibility introduced by scientists Bland and Altman. For repeatability to be established, certain conditions must be in place such as the same location, measurement procedure, observer, measuring instrument, and experimental conditions with repetition occurring over a short period of time.
What does it mean to reproduce a project or an experiment?
For example, think of baking your family’s favorite cookie recipe, giving directions to a new location, or learning to perform a science experiment. To get to the desired end goal of the task, identify the order of the steps that could go wrong that would result in the task not ending as intended. Reproducibility happens in daily life but is also crucial to science and scientific experiments.
Reproducibility in Science
It is important for a scientist to follow the steps in a specific order to achieve their end goal. The Scientific Method is utilized by scientists to conduct their research and answer research questions. The steps of the Scientific Method include:
- Identifying a problem, gathering data
- Creating a hypothesis (a possible explanation of an observation made in the natural world)
- Testing the formulated hypothesis by making an experiment
- Analyzing the results
- Drawing conclusions
- Disseminating the results to the scientific community
When formulating an experiment, it is important to consider the existing body of evidence in the scientific domain of interest. Note that one experiment is not sufficient to extend the current body of knowledge. Scientific theories emerge from different studies from hypotheses tested repeatedly and conclusions are drawn against existing research.
Bioinformatics in Health or Clinical Settings
For bioinformatics in a clinical setting, it is crucial that the scope of the work is clearly and effectively stated by researchers. When considering identifying a problem or formulating a question statement a scientist can create their own or modify an existing hypothesis. Perhaps an area has little research, but maybe there is a lot of research on the topic. When gathering data, one may gather primary data themselves or use data that is reusable. The use of existing data typically occurs from people sharing their data within data repositories.
Throughout the course of conducting research, the Scientific Method is rinsed through multiple times to build upon the evidence. For a hypothesis to be valid in scientific research, the hypothesis MUST be testable, falsifiable, explain natural phenomena, and successfully predict the results of future experiments which implies some aspect of reproducibility.
What to Expect
In the following portions of this module, we will discuss reproducing versus replicating research projects as well as how we can be sure that we are reproducing a given experiment correctly.