duplicator

In addition to providing a curated catalogue of data sets and analytic tools tailored to environment-security research, one of the primary goals of the DANTE Project is to present use cases that set out to replicate methodologies employed by modern high impact peer reviewed studies in human geography, political science, and environmental science. While developing the replication studies we will provide several tools designed to make advanced analytical techniques more accessible to beginner and intermediate users.

The ability to parse leading peer reviewed research, comprehend their underlying methodologies, and adapt them to personal needs is a major barrier to early-career scientists with high technical aspirations. This already difficult task is made even more challenging by publications with inadequate written methods plagued by poorly conveyed data processing procedures, insufficient details regarding software and package use, and a lack of specific arguments used for statistical modeling. All these issues would be remedied if researchers were required to provide their underlying code along with submissions. Not only would this provide total transparency, but it would serve as a teaching tool for graduate students and early career scientists.

Sadly, replication is one of the most overlooked aspects of the scientific process. Only recently have journals began to require underlying data used in analysis be submitted alongside the manuscript. Even fewer journals require code used to generate analysis be submitted. This is especially problematic in environment-security research where the signals are notoriously weak, and policy decisions based on research may have lasting global impacts.

duplicator aims to promote and demonstrate transparent, distributable, and open-source research. For more detailed information about the duplicator package please refer to the package website and reference materials. To contribute or report a bug to duplicator please refer to the GitLab repository.