PLOS/Mozilla Scientific Code Review Pilot: Summary of Findings
This addresses the problem of improving code quality and reproducibility in scientific publishing for computational biologists, but it is incremental as a pilot study with limited scope.
PLOS and Mozilla conducted a pilot study where professional developers reviewed code from PLOS Computational Biology papers, finding that developers faced challenges due to domain unfamiliarity and lack of author contact, but scientists valued the reviews and both groups were enthusiastic about continuing.
PLOS and Mozilla conducted a month-long pilot study in which professional developers performed code reviews on software associated with papers published in PLOS Computational Biology. While the developers felt the reviews were limited by (a) lack of familiarity with the domain and (b) lack of two-way contact with authors, the scientists appreciated the reviews, and both sides were enthusiastic about repeating the experiment.