Methods and Tools to Enhance Rigor and Reproducibility of Biomedical Research

Rigor and reproducibility of biomedical research has been the topic of much debate in recent years. Cases of replication failures, increasing number of retractions, and pervasiveness of questionable research practices lead to a lack of confidence in published findings, indicating that a portion of the biomedical research investment is wasted. Some ongoing efforts aim to address the issues in research conduct and dissemination by focusing mainly on standardization. Guidelines and principles pertaining to data, code, and publications have been proposed. The goal of this didactic panel is to engage the medical informatics community in a discussion about strategies to complement such efforts using informatics methods, tools, and resources. In the panel, first, we will provide a brief overview of standardization initiatives. Next, the panelists will present their informatics-based approaches toward improving rigor and reproducibility of biomedical research, focusing on such areas as information retrieval, natural language processing/text mining, and semantic modeling. Finally, with audience participation, we will discuss challenges facing informatics research aiming to address these problems and seek to identify some potentially fruitful research directions.