On the optimistic performance evaluation of newly introduced bioinformatic methods

Buchka, Stefan; Hapfelmeier, Alexander; Gardner, Paul P.; Wilson, Rory and Boulesteix, Anne-Laure (11. May 2021): On the optimistic performance evaluation of newly introduced bioinformatic methods. In: Genome Biology, Vol. 22, No. 152

Abstract

Most research articles presenting new data analysis methods claim that “the new method performs better than existing methods,” but the veracity of such statements is questionable. Our manuscript discusses and illustrates consequences of the optimistic bias occurring during the evaluation of novel data analysis methods, that is, all biases resulting from, for example, selection of datasets or competing methods, better ability to fix bugs in a preferred method, and selective reporting of method variants. We quantitatively investigate this bias using an example from epigenetic analysis: normalization methods for data generated by the Illumina HumanMethylation450K BeadChip microarray.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Form of publication: Publisher's Version
• Keywords: Benchmarking, Optimistic bias, Neutral comparison study, Illumina HumanMethylation450K BeadChip, Normalization
• Faculties: Medicine > Institute for Medical Information Processing, Biometry and Epidemiology
• Subjects: 600 Technology > 610 Medicine and health
• Language: English