HOW TO USE AUTHOREA Hey, welcome. Double click anywhere on the text to start writing. In addition to simple text you can also add text formatted in BOLDFACE, _italic_, and yes, math too: E = mc²! Add images by drag’n’drop or click on the “Insert Figure” button. Citing other papers is easy. Voilà: or . Click on the cite button in the toolbar to search articles and cite them. Authorea also comes with a powerful commenting system. Don’t agree that E = mc³?!? Highlight the text you want to discuss or click the comment button. Find out more about using Authorea on our help page. INTRODUCTION The Geosciences Paper of the Future Initiative was created by the EarthCube OntoSoft project and its Early Career Advisory Committee formed by 30 geoscientists in different disciplines in order to disseminate best practices for reproducible publications, open science, and digital scholarship. The Initiative consists of three major efforts: 1. the compilation of best practices from a variety of community organizations (e.g, ESIP, RDA), scientific societies (e.g., AGU, AAAS, CODATA), curators (e.g., IEDA, NSIDC), and publishers (Nature, Science) 2. the dissemination of best practices through training sessions at major scientific conferences (e.g., AGU, GSA, ASLO, CEDAR); and research institutions (e.g., WHOI, USGS). The training materials are openly available, including a summary checklist for authors, and show how to manage their scholarly identity, reputation, and impact throughout their careers. 3. the publication of a special issue of the AGU Earth and Space Science journal on Geoscience Papers of the Future containing articles that illustrate how to apply these best practices in different geosciences areas, with another special issue of the journal Geophysics under way. A Geosciences Paper of the Future follows best practices to document all the associated digital products that result from the research reported in the paper. This means that a paper would include: - Data available in a public repository, including documented metadata, a clear license specifying conditions of use, and citable using a unique and persistent identifier - Software available in a public repository, with documentation, a license for reuse, and a unique and citable using a persistent identifier - Provenance of the results by explicitly describing the series of computations and their outcome in a workflow sketch, a formal workflow, or a provenance record, possibly in a shared repository and with a unique and persistent identifier These best practices are described in detail in . The Geoscience Papers of the Future published to date not only serve as exemplars of how to implement best practices, but also expose limitations of existing cyberinfrastructure capabilities to support scientists in their work. In this paper, we give a synthesis of perspectives by GPF authors contrasting the approaches used to implement GPF best practices in their own disciplines, the lessons learned, the challenges encountered, and the benefits found. _We should summarize here the main findings_. The paper starts with an overview of the articles that illustrates the breadth of disciplines, motivations, and approaches covered by all the GPFs. We then compare the different papers along common dimensions. We discuss the benefits and the challenges found. We conclude with prospects for the future. NOTE from 5/15/17 meeting: Add a comment about the different levels of reproducibility.