Metadata annotation is key to reproducibility in sequencing experiments. Reproducing this research using the scripts provided will also show the current level of annotation in years since 2015 when the paper was published.
I guess it could be a cool learning experience. The paper is written with knitr, uses a seed, is part of the R package it describes, was openly written using version control (SVN, R-Forge) and is available in an open access journal (@up_jors).