Software Peer Review

rOpenSci’s Software Peer Review program brings together scientists and software engineers to improve the quality, reliability, and maintainability of scientific R packages through a transparent, constructive, non adversarial, and open review process. We bring together the best aspects of scientific peer review and open-source code review: recruiting expert developers and users to provide feedback, careful moderation and mentorship to provide a productive and inclusive environment, code diagnostics based on rOpenSci’s deep experience in the R language, chatbot-supported interactions, and automation on open platforms for a smooth experience.

Together, we use the peer review process to curate a suite of high quality packages and a community of developers and users to support the long-term development and maintenance of scientific software. rOpenSci’s software peer-review relies on the volunteer work of editors, who manage the incoming flow and ensure progress of submissions; authors who create, submit and improve their packages; and reviewers, who examine software source code and documentation.

rOpenSci’s peer review focuses on scientific applications, and we accept submissions of packages related to our two software-review streams of scientific data lifecycles and statistical algorithms. You can read more about our standards, process, and how to participate in peer review in our development guide and our guide for statistical software.