Published Compute Capsules Are Open

Code Ocean has been all about open access and open science from day one. A key component of our commitment to open access and flexibility is giving our users the ability to export Capsules as a whole – code, computational environment, data and results – for use elsewhere.

This allows researchers to take published and private Compute Capsules out of Code Ocean and run the code on any machine, to reproduce published results, and/or build on top of them.

On Code Ocean, authors retain ownership of their code and data and can specify whatever reuse license they choose. This means that they can export Compute Capsules from Code Ocean and freely share or store them in alternative repositories, such as GitHub. To facilitate this, a set of curated base environments is available on the public Code Ocean Docker registry. You can access it by following the instructions provided in the exported archive.

The exported Capsule archive will contain the following:

• Code and (optionally) data folders
• A metadata folder with a file in YAML format containing the complete Capsule metadata
• An environment folder containing instructions for building the Capsule’s computational environment in the form of a Dockerfile and any required supporting files.

To reproduce the results locally, please follow the instructions in REPRODUCING.md, found at the root level (or see this knowledge base article). They will walk you through installing the necessary prerequisites, e.g. Docker, downloading additional public datasets (if applicable), fetching the Docker image or building it locally, and finally using the image to execute the code within a Docker container. Base images containing commercial software such as MATLAB and Stata will require you to provide a license (e.g. an existing personal license or a trial license) and mount it into the container during runtime.

Open access and open science are important to advance scientific discovery. We are doing our part by committing to continue to keep access to published Compute Capsules open.

At Code Ocean our mission is to build a sustainable platform for researchers and their institutions that helps them make their work more reproducible and readily reusable. We don’t lock you in, don’t make it hard for you to leave – because we believe you will stay for the many benefits Compute Capsules offer.

We are open and receptive to comments and feedback.

If you have suggestions or question, please contact us at contact@codeocean.com or tweet us at @codeoceanHQ.