We’re finally here. Datazar Paper is the most exciting tool we’ve created to date. Up until now, I’d like to believe we’ve only made par with the status quo in terms of the tools we have developed for our beloved community of industry researchers, hackers and academics.

We have a vision at Datazar where researchers would eventually be able to create and consume research in one, continious cycle. We introduced tools like Replication (ability to replicate a research project simply by clicking a button), Discussions (real time chat where you can exchange code snippets etc…) and Metrics (research tracking and feedback on views, usage etc…). These tools help users create research with their colleagues without juggling different tools.

Datazar Paper is the tools that ties all of these together. A common workflow on Datazar is (1) uploading data, (2) creating analysis based on the data using for example an R notebook and(3) exporting the results/visualizations for reporting or for a research paper. That last step was always awkward to deal with because there are so many ways to go about it. At some point we create a versatile, JavaScript notebook to try and tie all of it together to make reporting easier. Before that, we created a new language to simplify creating a report or paper while maintaining interactivity. Reports are papers are everywhere, the problem is they are not interactive and/or reproducible. This article* on the deatch of traditional papers explains it really well.

In short, we believe the traditional, static paper is not good enough anymore in today’s world to convey today’s complex ideas.

Medium, yes this Medium was a giant leap in terms of how easy it made creating articles. Datazar Paper was heavily influced by Medium; specifically the editor. We took the same approach and created an editor that allows you to create an article/paper/report like a lego house. No code involved whatsoever. This last bit is extremely important because the people in an organization who usually do the reporting are the people with least exeprience in coding. And to be frank, you shouldn’t really need code to create a simple paper or report.

We recognize that the overall transition to an interactive and easily reproducible writing process will be long so I’d like to take this opportunity to say that we still support LaTeX and MarkDown and will continue to do so. In case you didn’t know, Datazar gives you the ability to create LaTeX and MarkDown documents in your browser. In fact, LaTeX documents are the most popular files created on Datazar.

With Datazar Paper, we got one step closer in creating an ecosystem where research is created, shared and preserved automatically. Now you can store your data, analyze it using R & Python notebooks and publish eveything from code to visualizations using Datazar Paper. All without switching between a dozen programs and without squeezig your CPU for computational power.

Link to Launch: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/datazar-paper

Some papers I picked out:

https://www.datazar.com/focus/f03b8705b-c0ba-454c-afa0-3a7729a6c96f

https://www.datazar.com/focus/f5abc508d-7091-40cd-a14b-c6f2da005c14

https://www.datazar.com/focus/f649aea35-953d-4eb2-8ad4-037d6c343225

*https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-scientific-paper-is-obsolete/556676/

Introducing Datazar Paper was originally published in Datazar Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.