2016-06-23 A Better Approach For An Incentive Based Approach For Improving Data Reproducibility

2016-06-23

Dr. Michael Rosenblatt provided an approach to increase data reproducibility in his article "An incentive-based approach for improving data reproducibility" published in Science Translational Medicine. Me and many of others do not agree on this.

Dr. Rosenblatt did not illustrate the real reason that causes the research data not reproducible. I have interviewed 123 academic labs and 104 biotech companies and found out people's laziness is the source of the problem. Researchers do not want to write down the details of the reagents during the experimentation because there is too much work. And many of them claim they can remember everything they did, but often they can not tell what they eat for yesterday's lunch. Would some finance reward able to completely avoid people’s laziness? No.Researchers are creating the technologies for tomorrow. But ironically, they are using the out-dated methodology in documentation and data management. More than 80% of academic researchers are still relying on handwriting. This problem has been hindering the scientific research for > 20 years. Many solutions (Laboratory Information Management System, LIMS and Electronic Lab Notebook, ELN) have been developed, but none of them is as simple as hand writing. We at Labii Inc. are dedicated to revolutionizing the data documentation process, create a platform to make data entering as simple as taking pictures. The new version is under development, please signup at labii.com to receive the updates.

By Yonggan Wu