Overview of the submission process

The ReScience C editorial board unites scientists who are committed to the open source community. Each editorial board member is specialised in a specific domain of science and is proficient in several programming languages and/or environments. Our aim is to provide all authors with an efficient, constructive and public editorial process.

Submitted entries are first considered by a member of the editorial board, who may decide to reject the submission (mainly because it has already been replicated and is publicly available), or assign it to two reviewers for further review and tests. The reviewers evaluate the code and the accompanying material in continuous interaction with the authors through the PR discussion section. If both reviewers managed to run the code and obtain the same results as the ones advertised in the accompanying material, and if they consider that these results are a replication of the original work, the submission is accepted. If any of the two reviewers cannot reproduce the results before the deadline, the submission is rejected and authors are encouraged to resubmit an improved version later.

How to submit?

  • Upload your code to a public repository (e.g. GitHub)
  • Upload your data (if any) to a public repository (e.g. Zenodo)
  • Write the corresponding paper using the proposed LaTeX template or your own template
  • Fill metadata associated with your submission using the provided template
  • Submit your paper
  • Answer reviewers comments and modify your code and paper accordingly
  • Once accepted, you will need to:
    • complete the metadata in collaboration with the editor
    • upload your code to Zenodo in order to get a DOI.

Criteria for Publication

To be considered for publication in ReScience C, any given submission must satisfy the following criteria:

  • Rigorous methodology
  • Original source code
  • Substantial evidence for replication of the original results or explanations why original results cannot be replicated

Furthermore, you cannot submit the replication of your own research, nor the research of your close collaborators. We believe such restrictions will favor the cross-fertilization of research and the spread of knowledge.

ReScience C accepts negative results as well, meaning here a failure to replicate the original results. The authors of the failed replication are expected to document their claim of failure, and to have attempted to contact the authors of the original article.

Article Scope

The accompanying article should help the reader ascertain if the replication was successful and as such, the main focus should be on the replicated results and on any obstacles encountered during the replication.

In many cases it can be useful to include high-level summaries of the original model or of your source code. Your goal should be to make the article sufficiently self-contained, but not to repeat all aspects of the original article or your documentation. Which amount of detail is sufficient may vary from case to case and is ultimately up to the reviewers to judge. If a reader has to be familiar with the original article in order to understand your explanations, consider that some readers may be unable to access it if it is behind a paywall.

Open Access

ReScience C applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to all works it publishes. Under the CC BY license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their article, but authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles in ReScience C journal, so long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.