Sharing and caring: Creating a culture of constructive criticism in computational legal studies

• Main Authors: COUPETTE, Corinna, HARTUNG, Dirk
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2023
• Subjects: Legal Studies; Science and Technology Law
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/4529; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sol_research/article/6487/viewcontent/6psy5cv39n72en5qn9ez16yqatk8y0z6.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

We introduce seven foundational principles for creating a culture of constructive criticism in computational legal studies. Beginning by challenging the current perception of papers as the primary scholarly output, we call for a more comprehensive interpretation of publications. We then suggest to make these publications computationally reproducible, releasing all of the data and all of the code all of the time, on time, and in the most functioning form feasible. Once all materials are made available by default, we invite constructive criticism in all phases of the publication life cycle. We posit that our proposals will help form our field, and float the idea of marking this maturity by the creation of a modern flagship publication outlet for computational legal studies.