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The reproducibility and replicability (R&R) crisis poses a significant challenge across disciplines, particularly in spatiotemporal studies. This paper focuses on the unique challenges within spatiotemporal research in the context of R&R, including data availability, methodological conception transparency, interdisciplinary collaboration complexities, the balance between R&R and innovation, and R&R education. Recognizing the potential of Scientific Workflow Management Systems (SWMS) to enhance R&R, we introduce a pioneering SWMS-based integrated spatiotemporal research approach (SISRA) utilizing KNIME, an open-source SWMS, to tackle these R&R challenges. First, we developed a set of KNIME extensions, including Geospatial and Dataverse extensions, to enhance spatiotemporal software availability in SWMS. Then we created spatial data virtual laboratory architecture to support multidisciplinary collaboration. Finally, we suggested a geographical research lifecycle that integrates SWMS-based methods to improve practices, efficiency, and innovation in R&R research and education. Our approach exemplifies how executable workflows can not only alleviate the R&R burden on researchers but also strengthen R&R education in geographical research, illustrating the benefits of our approach in training, teaching, and multidisciplinary collaboration.
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An Open-Source Workflow for Spatiotemporal Studies with COVID-19 as an Example
Many previous studies have shown that open-source technologies help democratize information and foster collaborations to enable addressing global physical and societal challenges. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has imposed unprecedented challenges to human society. It affects every aspect of livelihood, including health, environment, transportation, and economy. Open-source technologies provide a new ray of hope to collaboratively tackle the pandemic. The role of open source is not limited to sharing a source code. Rather open-source projects can be adopted as a software development approach to encourage collaboration among researchers. Open collaboration creates a positive impact in society and helps combat the pandemic effectively. Open-source technology integrated with geospatial information allows decision-makers to make strategic and informed decisions. It also assists them in determining the type of intervention needed based on geospatial information. The novelty of this paper is to standardize the open-source workflow for spatiotemporal research. The highlights of the open-source workflow include sharing data, analytical tools, spatiotemporal applications, and results and formalizing open-source software development. The workflow includes (i) developing open-source spatiotemporal applications, (ii) opening and sharing the spatiotemporal resources, and (iii) replicating the research in a plug and play fashion. Open data, open analytical tools and source code, and publicly accessible results form the foundation for this workflow. This paper also presents a case study with the open-source spatiotemporal application development for air quality analysis in California, USA. In addition to the application development, we shared the spatiotemporal data, source code, and research findings through the GitHub repository.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1841520
- PAR ID:
- 10398242
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2220-9964
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 13
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi11010013
