The material on Evolv-ED

Articles — These are the primary products published on Evolv-ED. These are step-by-step instruction guidebooks that are typically (but not always) literate programming examples: they include computer code, which is described in detail for educational purposes. To facilitate the use of these examples, they are self-contained individual documents webpage files (.html).

Resource evolution — Articles elaborate how a particular result or results can be obtained using a set of resources, which are either software libraries, packages applications or data items. Unfortunately (or fortunately) all of these resources evolve: they change through time. Every article is built using a specific set of resources, documenting it with use case. As resources themselves get older so do specific articles: they are on a trajectory of becoming obsolete.

Versioning — The aging of resources does not mean that they are are not needed, or that they would not be of any use in research. On the contrary: to keep the scientific nowledge alive, we must be able to reproduce previous results with the updated tools. This starts with educational material, that articles primarily represent. To counteract this aging multiple versions of articles can be published on Evolv-ED, each recording the exact software versions that were used to build it.

Archival — Evolv-ED guarantees the access to earlier articles by archiving them on Zenodo, a general-purpose scientific repository operated by CERN.

Guides

How-to articles are short guidebooks that have a clearly stated, distinct, technical aim, which is achieved using a set of tools/resources. Such aims include bringing data items into various forms, deriving specific variables from basic data sources, calculation of specific statistics or the derivations of figure types - to mention a few. The steps needed to reach this goal is elaborated step-by-step, focusing on the lucid, detailed, complete documentation of the process. Most how-to guides connect multiple data and/or software resources, but this is not a necessity.

Tutorial articles are similar to how-tos, and also include a step-by-step description of a scientific pipeline. These are longer, and have a larger-scale, more abstract aim that is targeted at one or more scientific question(s). This necessitates a broader frame and a shift in the focus of text: tutorials include the rationale of why particular analytical decisions are made, rather than the pure documentation of work steps.

Research logs

Research logs (not yet!) are meant to accompany scientific papers that typically cannot accomodate the detailed desciption of the work steps they report due to length constraints. Nevertheless, the accurate description of how a particular scientific results are derived is crucially important for a sustainably reproducible research environment. Evolv-ED offers a platform on which these can be communicated, including the eventual updating of the research pipeline (updated versions of research logs). The issue of constantly changing data is getting tackled together with the related chronosphere project, authors interested in writing research logs are encouraged to utilize this project’s features. Reserach logs will be included in a large-scale, openly-developed study on reproducibilty and replicability in eco-evolutionary research.