R and teamwork for better science in less time

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## R and teamwork for better science in less time
### Julia Stewart Lowndes, PhD
### National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis, UCSB

[ @juliesquid](https://twitter.com/juliesquid) 
[ lowndes@nceas.ucsb.edu](mailto:lowndes@nceas.ucsb.edu) 
[ openscapes.org/media](http://openscapes.org/media)

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<img src="img/horst-lowndes-loop-wtext.png" width="100%" />

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art: [@allison_horst](https://twitter.com/allison_horst)   
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The way I have been thinking about it, open data science tools and practices and teamwork & collaboration exist in this feedback loop.

Learning and using similar software promotes and streamlines teammwork. And also working as a team better equips you to learn open practices data science.

But as env scientists, we're never taught data science/open practices, and we're not taught to work as a team, even when we are physically sitting with other scientists similar to us in our research groups research group

So despite this being a really powerful feedback loop, many scientists are outside of it, without clear entry points.

To set the stage a bit, let me briefly introduce 2 project I'll be talking about today:

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<img src="img/horst_openscapes_grassland_1500px-text-hex.png" width="100%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

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**We champion open practices in science to help uncover data-driven solutions faster.** 
 
**Champions Program mentors research teams to help build mindsets and habits around open data science, and grow the community of practice.** 
 
**Operated by NCEAS and incubated by Mozilla**

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<img src="img/Cohort1_zoom.png" width="85%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

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web: [openscapes.org](https://openscapes); twitter: [@openscapes](https://twitter.com/openscapes)
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So I developed Openscapes,

this builds from nearly 7 years of the OHI

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<img src="img/ohi-illustration-hex.png" width="80%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

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**A scientific method, tool, and community for channeling the best available scientific information into marine policy.** 
 
**Global assessments annually since 2012** 
 
**Independent "OHI+" assessments in 20 geographies**

.footnote[
source: [*Halpern et al. 2012*: An Index to assess the health and benefits of the global ocean](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7413/full/nature11397.html); web: [ohi-science.org](http://ohi-science.org)
]
]

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<img src="img/ohi-team-2018b-crop.jpeg" width="100%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />
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A scientific method, tool, and community for channeling the best available scientific information into marine policy.

It is being used by the United Nations and by 20 groups around the world.

There is a lot to it but what is relevant here is that we combine lots of data, we repeat our analyses every year, and we do it as a team.

But we are marine scientists, and we were never trained to work responsibly with data.

So we found out the hard way that our default approaches were not reproducible by even ourselves.

Getting through this involved quite a reckoning, but when we got through it, we knew we had a story to tell.

transition: I like to talk about this with analogies from Star Wars

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art: [@allison_horst](https://twitter.com/allison_horst)
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This is Luke Skywalker after he crashed his plane in the swamp on Degobah.

He cannot solve the the challenge in front of him with the skillsets he has.

He is demoralized and alone. And if you imagine him attempting to use whatever pulleys and ropes he might have with him, you know it wouldn't be pretty, it wouldn't be reproducible, and it probably wouldn't get him where he needs to be on time.

transition: but luckily what happens next is that he meets Yoda

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<img src="img/horst-starwars-yoda.png" width="88%" />

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art: [@allison_horst](https://twitter.com/allison_horst)
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Yoda uses the Force to solve Luke's problem in a way Luke never imagined was possible.

This is going to open up Luke's whole world because he can learn from Yoda and not only solve his current but it will broaden his mind to what is possible in the future.

transition: But Luke didn't go on to defeat the Empire himself, he had a whole community.

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art: [@allison_horst](https://twitter.com/allison_horst)
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And this community is powerful because of the diversity of backgrounds and expertise, and although not everyone is a Jedi, everyone contributes in really critical ways.

transition: So just to recap,

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R is the Force that enables us as scientists to do better science in less time.

It empowers us to get our own data out of the swamp.

It empowers us and build off of our confidence and experiences and broaden the scope of scientific challenges that we can tackle, which is relevant whether you are at SCCWRP or anywhere else.

transition: so my talk will really be framed around these ideas: that the software and the teamwork go hand-in-hand.

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<img src="img/horst-lowndes-loop-wtext.png" width="100%" />

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This is my outline. Will talk this through with concrete examples from OHI, and how I've been turning those lessons learned into mentorship and impact with Openscapes

Let's start off with the tools on the left.

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<img src="img/horst-starwars-luke.png" width="60%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

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art: [@allison_horst](https://twitter.com/allison_horst), graphics: [Andy Teucher](https://github.com/ateucher/vic-geogeeks-2018-01-30)
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Because we were all self taught, we came at OHI with the mismatches. Difficult workflows, and difficult to collaborate.

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<img src="img/nature-screenshot-title.png" width="100%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

.footnote[
source: [Lowndes *et al.* 2017](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0160); web: [ohi-science.org/betterscienceinlesstime](http://ohi-science.org/betterscienceinlesstime/)
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Figuring out was a big enough deal that we published this in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

What made it unique: we shared our struggles, and described the transition

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### More reproducibility & collaboration, less time
<img src="img/bsilt-fig1-simple.png" width="60%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

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source: [*Lowndes et al. 2017* Our path  to better science in less time using open data science tools](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0160)
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It looks like this.

Shown here as the circles get smaller and moving up the y axis. It also go easier for us to collaborate each year, along the x axis.

We couldn't overhaul everything all at once, but focused on different pieces incrementally each year.

Having all of this coding infrastructure in place is what enables those 20 independent groups I mentioned to study ocean health in the places they care about.

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<img src="img/screenshot-paur-talk-ods.png" width="65%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

.footnote[
source: [OHI slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12m8dUpIOz16x1RlZWLtj9u5E9wMxtYuP0T_HxoDnyKw/edit?usp=sharing)
]

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<img src="img/ohi-how-we-work2.png" width="100%" style="display: block; margin: auto;" />

.footnote[
source: [OHI slides — UW](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LA4EcnRxD11rjwbRh0hrjPG5J0dmiiuCbNaoQrz0XHU/edit?usp=sharing)
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