[REVIEW]: FedIRT: An R package and Shiny app for estimating federated item response theory models

[editorialbot]

Submitting author: @trtfj (Feng Ji)
Repository: https://github.com/Feng-Ji-Lab/FedIRT
Branch with paper.md (empty if default branch):
Version: v0.1.0
Editor: @samhforbes
Reviewers: @salbalkus, @asmitamitra
Archive: Pending

Status

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Reviewers and authors:

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Reviewer instructions & questions

@salbalkus & @asmitamitra, your review will be checklist based. Each of you will have a separate checklist that you should update when carrying out your review.
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✨ Please start on your review when you are able, and be sure to complete your review in the next six weeks, at the very latest ✨

Checklists

📝 Checklist for @salbalkus

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[editorialbot]

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

✅ OK DOIs

- 10.4324/9781410605269 is OK
- 10.48550/arXiv.2012.01973 is OK
- 10.18637/jss.v048.i06 is OK
- 10.18637/jss.v017.i05 is OK
- 10.48550/arXiv.1610.05492 is OK
- 10.18637/jss.v020.i05 is OK
- 10.1007/BF02293801 is OK

🟡 SKIP DOIs

- No DOI given, and none found for title: Communication-efficient learning of deep networks ...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Federated Psychometrics: A Distributed, Privacy-pr...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Federated Item Response Theory: A Distributed, Pri...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Federated Item Response Models
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Predictive Modeling of Uniform Differential Item F...

❌ MISSING DOIs

- None

❌ INVALID DOIs

- None

[editorialbot]

Software report:

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.98  T=0.03 s (2259.4 files/s, 207030.5 lines/s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language                     files          blank        comment           code
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
R                               55            415            842           2555
XML                              2             11              0           1243
CSV                              5              0              0            501
Markdown                         3            153              2            342
TeX                              1              1              0             94
YAML                             2             11              6             55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM:                            68            591            850           4790
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commit count by author:

    54	BiyingZhou
     9	Biying Zhou
     5	trtfj

[editorialbot]

Paper file info:

⚠️ Wordcount for paper.md is 1819

✅ The paper includes a Statement of need section

[editorialbot]

License info:

🟡 License found: Other (Check here for OSI approval)

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[salbalkus]

Review checklist for @salbalkus

Conflict of interest

• I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/Feng-Ji-Lab/FedIRT?
• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE or COPYING file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@trtfj) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
• Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines
• Data sharing: If the paper contains original data, data are accessible to the reviewers. If the paper contains no original data, please check this item.
• Reproducibility: If the paper contains original results, results are entirely reproducible by reviewers. If the paper contains no original results, please check this item.
• Human and animal research: If the paper contains original data research on humans subjects or animals, does it comply with JOSS's human participants research policy and/or animal research policy? If the paper contains no such data, please check this item.

Functionality

• Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
• Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
• Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
• Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
• Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
• Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
• Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1. Contribute to the software 2. Report issues or problems with the software 3. Seek support

Software paper

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve, who the target audience is, and its relation to other work?
• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?

[salbalkus]

Hi @trtfj and @BiyingZhou,

Thank you for this nice addition to the R ecosystem. I have yet to check the functionality of the software, which I'll do a little later, so thus far I've gone through everything besides that. I've found four major areas that require addressing, which I've included as issues on the GitHub repo:

• JOSS review: License Feng-Ji-Lab/FedIRT#1
• JOSS review: Data Feng-Ji-Lab/FedIRT#2
• JOSS review: Missing documentation Feng-Ji-Lab/FedIRT#3
• JOSS review: Paper Feng-Ji-Lab/FedIRT#4

Some other comments:

• Since it seems to be an important part of using the package, it might be worth including in the documentation how to open a port, for those less technically inclined.
• When I use the runserver() and runclient() functions, the Shiny app appears, but with a display saying Error: could not find function "shell" which I assume is unintended behavior. My operating system is Linux (Fedora Kinoite); could this perhaps be a culprit?