The Software Sustainability Institute: Phase 2
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre
Abstract
Modern research is impossible without software. From short, thrown-together temporary scripts to solve a specific problem, through an abundance of complex spreadsheets analysing collected data, to the hundreds of software engineers and millions of lines of code behind international efforts such as the Large Hadron Collider and the Square Kilometre Array, there are few areas of research where software does not have a fundamental role.
Further, this is not just research based on the "traditional" users of computational infrastructure. Data science and "big data" would not be possible without software to access, analyse, visualise, send and store that data. Software use is also not restricted to the physical sciences: the use of research software is even across all disciplines, with 68% of researchers reporting that their research would be impossible without research software. The capacity of all researchers, in the UK and worldwide, to generate new insights depends on the availability of research software and the ability of researchers to use it (better software, better research).
During the next phase of the Institute, we will focus on the domains of each of the Research Councils (particularly BBSRC, EPSRC and ESRC) and help their researchers gain the most from available services to improve the sustainability, engineering, reuse, quality and recognition of software.
To deliver this, the Institute's work is split into five themes:
Community: bringing people together via events and networks to identify, understand and facilitate solutions for common challenges;
Policy: research into the social, economic and technical drivers of the research software community, understanding its needs, and then working to enact the required changes through campaigns;
Research Software: working directly with researchers who are developing software to ensure it meets the needs of reliable, reproducible and reusable research;
Training: coordinating, defining, and delivering training on software development and data science skills to UK research organisations, and working to build a sustained training platform;
Communications: ensuring the work of the Institute is disseminated to the widest possible audience, and working with collaborators to amplify the impact of our work.
With the help of additional studies extending the work above, we will conduct research-council specific campaigns tailored to the needs of the researchers to help increase the uptake of services (not just those offered by the Institute, but those funded by the research councils) that are already available and define services which are lacking. This will not only help researchers from all research domains acquire the skills they need for modern research (helping researchers help themselves), but will also ensure that the lessons learned within one domain are transferred to the others - keeping the UK at the forefront of world-leading research.
Further, this is not just research based on the "traditional" users of computational infrastructure. Data science and "big data" would not be possible without software to access, analyse, visualise, send and store that data. Software use is also not restricted to the physical sciences: the use of research software is even across all disciplines, with 68% of researchers reporting that their research would be impossible without research software. The capacity of all researchers, in the UK and worldwide, to generate new insights depends on the availability of research software and the ability of researchers to use it (better software, better research).
During the next phase of the Institute, we will focus on the domains of each of the Research Councils (particularly BBSRC, EPSRC and ESRC) and help their researchers gain the most from available services to improve the sustainability, engineering, reuse, quality and recognition of software.
To deliver this, the Institute's work is split into five themes:
Community: bringing people together via events and networks to identify, understand and facilitate solutions for common challenges;
Policy: research into the social, economic and technical drivers of the research software community, understanding its needs, and then working to enact the required changes through campaigns;
Research Software: working directly with researchers who are developing software to ensure it meets the needs of reliable, reproducible and reusable research;
Training: coordinating, defining, and delivering training on software development and data science skills to UK research organisations, and working to build a sustained training platform;
Communications: ensuring the work of the Institute is disseminated to the widest possible audience, and working with collaborators to amplify the impact of our work.
With the help of additional studies extending the work above, we will conduct research-council specific campaigns tailored to the needs of the researchers to help increase the uptake of services (not just those offered by the Institute, but those funded by the research councils) that are already available and define services which are lacking. This will not only help researchers from all research domains acquire the skills they need for modern research (helping researchers help themselves), but will also ensure that the lessons learned within one domain are transferred to the others - keeping the UK at the forefront of world-leading research.
Planned Impact
The SSI's aim is to impact the research community through effective use and sustainability of software - Better Software Better Research - to foster global economic performance, prevent wasteful reinvention, improve returns on initial research investments and ultimately improve the competitiveness of the UK by making our researchers more innovative and productive.
Our very structure, organisation and work plan is based on five pathways to achieve this impact: research community engagement; stakeholder policy; sustaining key software; capacity building through training; and communications with all stakeholders, including the public. Our model of delivering software sustainability through collaboration and knowledge transfer between engineers and researchers achieves value and impact. A range of established schemes - Fellowships, workshops, engagement, consultancy, training, networks - ensure that researchers and research software engineers benefit.
Academic researchers will benefit from software - their own and that developed by others - that can be relied on and be used as the basis of their research. Fellowships and access to training in computational and data skills present opportunities to become more effective researchers. Researchers and developers who make software will have a facility to assist them with the maintenance, expansion, exploitation and community development of their codes for the benefit of themselves and others in the UK, and to make a wider impact internationally.
Commercial and public sector researchers will have access to more robust software from the research sector, with the potential and incentive to re-contribute. We will maximise the ability of researchers to take-up software developed by others for the benefit of the UK as a whole. With our industry partners we will pursue the exploitation of software to gain additional value from the commercial and public sector. The commercial sector will benefit from access to people who have gained skills required in industry, improving the ease which researchers and software engineers can transfer to the sector.
Policy makers will benefit from our:
- research into the demographics of the research software community and its economic impact, and by our representation of this community to inquiries organised by policy stakeholders, (e.g. UK government, Research Councils and other funding organisations) and internationally (e.g. NSF, NIH);
- contribution to specific policies relating to software, including software in scholarly communication and software management and accreditation;
- support of software which is used to define policy, e.g. software to support decision makers in the areas of climate change, social mobility and changing populations, and pollution policy.
The wider public will benefit:
- directly from interacting with the research software community via our online debates, gaining a greater understanding of the impact of research software, its role in research, and the challenges it faces;
- indirectly from the research made possible through the use of reliable and reproducible software, e.g. in biofuels, fusion energy and drug discovery where we have worked directly with leading research groups.
We will leverage our connections with international organisations to amplify the impact of the software we help sustain. We will promote the importance of software sustainability using our strong presence in: technical standards bodies; scientific standards initiatives; major scientific networks; major international projects impacting UK communities in Europe and the USA and major international initiatives. We will build on our experience and encourage and assist key scientific software groups to adopt better development methods, bring together islands of expertise to create critical mass in the community, foster the integration of similar software products, and facilitate a fuller dialogue between developers and users.
Our very structure, organisation and work plan is based on five pathways to achieve this impact: research community engagement; stakeholder policy; sustaining key software; capacity building through training; and communications with all stakeholders, including the public. Our model of delivering software sustainability through collaboration and knowledge transfer between engineers and researchers achieves value and impact. A range of established schemes - Fellowships, workshops, engagement, consultancy, training, networks - ensure that researchers and research software engineers benefit.
Academic researchers will benefit from software - their own and that developed by others - that can be relied on and be used as the basis of their research. Fellowships and access to training in computational and data skills present opportunities to become more effective researchers. Researchers and developers who make software will have a facility to assist them with the maintenance, expansion, exploitation and community development of their codes for the benefit of themselves and others in the UK, and to make a wider impact internationally.
Commercial and public sector researchers will have access to more robust software from the research sector, with the potential and incentive to re-contribute. We will maximise the ability of researchers to take-up software developed by others for the benefit of the UK as a whole. With our industry partners we will pursue the exploitation of software to gain additional value from the commercial and public sector. The commercial sector will benefit from access to people who have gained skills required in industry, improving the ease which researchers and software engineers can transfer to the sector.
Policy makers will benefit from our:
- research into the demographics of the research software community and its economic impact, and by our representation of this community to inquiries organised by policy stakeholders, (e.g. UK government, Research Councils and other funding organisations) and internationally (e.g. NSF, NIH);
- contribution to specific policies relating to software, including software in scholarly communication and software management and accreditation;
- support of software which is used to define policy, e.g. software to support decision makers in the areas of climate change, social mobility and changing populations, and pollution policy.
The wider public will benefit:
- directly from interacting with the research software community via our online debates, gaining a greater understanding of the impact of research software, its role in research, and the challenges it faces;
- indirectly from the research made possible through the use of reliable and reproducible software, e.g. in biofuels, fusion energy and drug discovery where we have worked directly with leading research groups.
We will leverage our connections with international organisations to amplify the impact of the software we help sustain. We will promote the importance of software sustainability using our strong presence in: technical standards bodies; scientific standards initiatives; major scientific networks; major international projects impacting UK communities in Europe and the USA and major international initiatives. We will build on our experience and encourage and assist key scientific software groups to adopt better development methods, bring together islands of expertise to create critical mass in the community, foster the integration of similar software products, and facilitate a fuller dialogue between developers and users.
Organisations
- University of Edinburgh (Lead Research Organisation)
- Economic and Social Research Council (Co-funder)
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (Co-funder)
- Software Preservation Network (Collaboration)
- The National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources project (Collaboration)
- The Carpentries (Collaboration)
- Software Carpentry Foundation (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Data Carpentry (Collaboration)
- GitHub (Project Partner)
Publications
Venters C
(2018)
Software sustainability: Research and practice from a software architecture viewpoint
in Journal of Systems and Software
Sufi S
(2018)
Ten simple rules for measuring the impact of workshops.
in PLoS computational biology
Smith A
(2016)
Software citation principles
in PeerJ Computer Science
Olivier Philippe
(2016)
Preliminary analysis of a survey of Research Software Engineers in the UK
Neil P. Chue Hong
(2016)
Making It easier to understand research software impact
Neil P. Chue Hong
(2016)
Why do we need to compare research software, and how should we do it?
Lucie C. Burgess
(2016)
ALAN TURING INSTITUTE SYMPOSIUM ON REPRODUCIBILITY FOR DATA-INTENSIVE RESEARCH - FINAL REPORT
Lane SIR
(2017)
Imaging Chromosome Separation in Mouse Oocytes by Responsive 3D Confocal Timelapse Microscopy.
in Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.)
Katz D
(2018)
Fourth Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE4)
in Journal of Open Research Software
Katz D
(2020)
The importance of software citation
in F1000Research
Katz D
(2019)
Community Organizations: Changing the Culture in Which Research Software Is Developed and Sustained
in Computing in Science & Engineering
Katz D
(2020)
Software and Data Citation
in Computing in Science & Engineering
Jiménez RC
(2017)
Four simple recommendations to encourage best practices in research software.
in F1000Research
Jay C
(2020)
The challenges of theory-software translation.
in F1000Research
Jackson M
(2018)
Software Deposit: What to deposit (Version 1.0)
Jackson M
(2018)
Software Deposit: Guidance for Researchers (Version 1.0)
Jackson M
(2018)
Software Deposit: Where to deposit software (Version 1.0)
Jackson M
(2021)
Using prototyping to choose a bioinformatics workflow management system.
in PLoS computational biology
Jackson M
(2018)
Checklist for a Software Management Plan (Version 1.0)
Jackson M
(2018)
Software Deposit: How to deposit software (Version 1.0)
Jackson M
(2018)
Software Deposit: How to review a software deposit (Version 1.0)
Jackson M
(2018)
Software Deposit: Why deposit software (Version 1.0)
Jackson M
(2019)
Software Deposit: When to deposit software (Version 1.0)
Jackson M
(2018)
Software Deposit: How to describe a software deposit (Version 1.0)
Jackson M
(2018)
Software Deposit: How to choose a software licence (Version 1.0)
Jackson M
(2018)
Software Deposit: What not to deposit (Version 1.0)
Garwood R
(2019)
RE voSim: Organism-level simulation of macro and microevolution
in Palaeontology
Costa Da Silva R
(2019)
Collaborations Workshop 2018 (CW18) Report - Culture Change, Productivity and Sustainability
in Research Ideas and Outcomes
Cohen J
(2021)
The Four Pillars of Research Software Engineering
in IEEE Software
Chue Hong N
(2018)
To achieve the goals of e-Science, we must change research culture globally
in Informatik-Spektrum
Carver J
(2015)
Software Engineering for CSE
in Scientific Programming
Carver J
(2017)
The 4th International Workshop on Software Engineering for HPC in Computational Science and Engineering
in Computing in Science & Engineering
Carole Goble
(2016)
A simple profiling framework for software user-producer maturity review
Barker M
(2019)
The global impact of science gateways, virtual research environments and virtual laboratories
in Future Generation Computer Systems
Artaza H
(2016)
Top 10 metrics for life science software good practices.
in F1000Research
| Title | Document all the things! (How again?) |
| Description | Documentation is key in sustaining (research) software. How can we expect future users, developers and maintainers to run, use, contribute to or maintain software if they cannot refer to its documentation? While this point seems - almost tautologically - clear, the question of how to best document a software project remains unanswered, although there are ongoing efforts, including dedicated conferences such as "Write The Docs", that aim to provide answers. In this mini-workshop we will have a brief look at a specific aspect of documentation: documentation types. Based on a use case from a new research project working to sustain a research software, we will discuss requirements of documentation for research software in terms of: (1) What must or should be documented? What types of documentation should a research software project provide in order to survive and be re-usable? Is there a minimal set and a maximal set of required documentation types or levels? (2) How do the different types of required documentation determine how the documentation should actually be written (or generated)? (3) What are the requirements for tooling that supports the creation of the required documentation? Is such tooling available? In the course of the workshop we will try to find some answers to these questions, with the aim to generate the starting point for a document on the documentation of research software. We can then collaborate further on this document during the hack session to create an output (a blog post/whitepaper/publication) that will help other research software practitioners to configure documentation of their own projects respectively. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| URL | https://figshare.com/articles/presentation/Document_all_the_things_How_again_/5432788/1 |
| Description | We have developed new methods and materials for improving and sustaining research software through mechanisms includes advice and guidance, training, policy, consultancy and community building. This has led to an improvement in adoption of good practice for developing research software, and a cultural change in the way that software is regarded in research. |
| Exploitation Route | Our findings are made available under Creative Commons and Open Source licenses to allow for maximum reuse. Some of our findings have been picked up by the media as part of articles, by other organisations involved in computational infrastructure, and by international initiatives such as Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry. |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |
| URL | http://www.software.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Our findings are being used by industry to understand career paths for Research Software Engineers. This includes the use of data collected as part of our international survey of Research Software Engineers, which has been used in the 2017 Research Software Engineer State of the Nation report, as well as the administrative and logistical support provided to help with the establishment of the UK RSE Association, Society of Research Software Engineering, and similar initiatives in Germany, the Netherlands, Canada and the USA. The workshop, and subsequent paper, we facilitated on "Four simple recommendations to encourage best practices in research software" has formed the basis of guidance for software development in the life sciences in Europe, and been taken forward by ELIXIR and NLeSC as both a website/campaign (https://softdev4research.github.io/4OSS-lesson/index.html) and course (https://softdev4research.github.io/4OSS-lesson/index.html) Our Fellowship Programme has also had additional impacts through work that was originally supported through this grant. James Baker's (2015 Fellow) work on Library Carpentry has been incorporated into the international Carpentries curriculum. Robert Haine's (2015 Fellow) work on tooling to support software citation has been used by GitHub. Caroline Jay (2016 Fellow and subsequently a Co-I on the follow-on grant) has taken forward work on translation to practice. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2017 |
| Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | Chair of EPSRC e-Infrastructure Strategic Advisory Team (Neil Chue Hong) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | Computational Science Centre for Research Communities (Steering Committee) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | FAIR in Practice report (Carole Goble) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | Better understanding of the underlying practices of research, demonstrating considerable evidence that good practices exists in findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability. In many cases this was both well established (over many years) and continually improving. |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/1245568 |
| Description | First Signatory to European Open Science Cloud Declaration |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/list_of_institutions_endorsing_the_eosc_declaration.pd... |
| Description | Membership (Carole Goble) of ESFRI DIGIT Working Group |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| URL | https://www.esfri.eu/strategy-working-group-data-computing-and-digital-research-infrastructures |
| Description | NIH Request for Information on Strategies for NIH Data Management, Sharing, and Citation |
| Geographic Reach | North America |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Description | OECD Expert Group on Digital Skills for Science (Neil Chue Hong) |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| URL | https://www.innovationpolicyplatform.org/digital-skills-data-intensive-science-oecd-project |
| Description | Open Research Data Task Force (Carole Goble and David De Roure) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| URL | https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/7750... |
| Description | Turning FAIR into reality - RSE Case Study |
| Geographic Reach | Europe |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| Impact | Showed how the way that the Software Sustainability Institute supported the Research Software Engineering workforce has led to better software engineering support for research software, improving accessibility of research services to the public. |
| URL | https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/7769a148-f1f6-11e8-9982-01aa75ed7... |
| Description | UKRI e-Infrastructure Advisory Board (Carole Goble) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | UNESCO/INRIA Expert Group On Software Source Code As Heritage For Sustainable Development (Neil Chue Hong) |
| Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| URL | https://en.unesco.org/foss/paris-call-software-source-code |
| Description | Research Data Shared Service Pilots |
| Amount | £30,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Jisc |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2017 |
| End | 07/2018 |
| Description | Standard Research |
| Amount | £80,263 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/N028902/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2016 |
| End | 01/2019 |
| Description | The UK Software Sustainability Institute: Phase 3 |
| Amount | £6,599,477 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/S021779/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 12/2018 |
| End | 11/2023 |
| Title | International RSE Survey |
| Description | In 2018 we created a single consolidated survey for all countries (rather than one survey for each country), to assess Research Software Engineers across the world. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This enables us to better understand, compare and improve the working conditions for RSEs across the world. |
| URL | https://github.com/softwaresaved/international-survey/ |
| Title | 2016 UK RSE Survey |
| Description | Anonymised release of data on the demographics, job satisfaction, and practices of Research Software Engineers collected via survey in 2016. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Better understanding of job satisfaction and skills of research software engineers in the UK. |
| URL | https://github.com/softwaresaved/international-survey/blob/master/analysis/2016/uk/data/public_data.... |
| Title | 2017 International RSE Survey |
| Description | Public release of data relating to the 2017 international surveys of research software engineers. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Not known at present. |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/1194669#.WqahZ5PFKL4 |
| Title | 2017 UK RSE Survey |
| Description | Anonymised release of data on the demographics, job satisfaction, and practices of Research Software Engineers in the UK collected via survey in 2017. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Better understanding of practices and working conditions for UK RSEs. Comparison against similar surveys in Germany, Netherlands, South Africa and USA. |
| URL | https://github.com/softwaresaved/international-survey/blob/master/analysis/2017/uk/data/public_data.... |
| Title | 2018 International RSE Survey |
| Description | Public data related to 2018 International Research Software Engineers Survey. We publish the results under the form of notebooks. All surveys have an attached 'public.csv' file. These files have been cleaned of all sensitive data. Therefore, the jupyter notebooks show some results that are not contained in the 'public.csv'. The base questions for the survey were tailored to meet the requirements of each country. They covered ten subjects: Demographics: traditional social and economic questions, such as gender, age, salary and education. Coding: how much code do RSEs write, how often, and for whom. Employment: questions about where RSEs work and in which disciplines. Current contract: understanding stability of employment by questioning the type of employment contract RSEs receive. Previous employment: understanding routes into the profession the reasons for choosing it. Collaboration and training: who RSEs work with, how many people they work with, and the training they conduct. Publications: do RSEs contribute to publications and are they acknowledged? Sustainability and tools: testing, bus factor, technical handover. Also which tools they are using Job satisfaction: what do RSEs think about their job and their career? Network: how do RSEs meet and gain representation? These subjects are not necessarily investigated under this order, neither published with that order. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Not known at present. |
| URL | https://github.com/softwaresaved/international-survey/ |
| Title | International RSE Survey 2022 |
| Description | A pre-final release of the survey data to feedback on anything that's missing or needs correction. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Additional evidence for importance of Research Software Engineers. New information on RSE practices. |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/6884882 |
| Title | Software used in research based on combined surveys |
| Description | The combined results of five surveys run by the Software Sustainability Institute, which were run between 2014 to 2016. The data relate to 1261 survey participants who were asked "What software do you use in your research?". The data are described here: https://www.software.ac.uk/blog/2016-08-13-quick-and-dirty-analysis-software-being-used-research-python-matlab-and-r |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Use of data in other studies. |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/60276#.WMkpaxKLSis |
| Title | The Software Sustainability Institute's Collaborations Workshop 2015 (CW15) attendees computational tools dataset |
| Description | Contains the question, raw data, and cleaned data for producing the most used software word cloud for those who attended the Software Sustainability Institute's Collaborations Workshop 2015 (CW15) held at the Oxford e-Research Institute, Oxford, UK from 25-27 March 2015 |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Unknown. |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/19828#.WMkp_hKLSis |
| Description | Data Carpentry |
| Organisation | Data Carpentry |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Coordination of Data Carpentry training events in the UK. Training of Data Carpentry instructors. Contribution of training material. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Production of training materials. Provision of central administrative infrastructure. |
| Impact | Multi-disciplinary. Training of hundreds of researchers in basic data management and analysis skills. |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | International Coalition on Science Gateways |
| Organisation | The National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources project |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | We have entered into the International Coalition on Science Gateways, administered by Nectar in Australia, as part of our work with Nectar and the US Science Gateways Institute to promote best practice in the development of science gateways. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partners are some of the primary supporters of science gateways in their respective countries. Their contributions have been through running of requirement workshops and development of best practice which we are able to utilise. |
| Impact | Paper submitted but not yet published. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Software Carpentry Foundation |
| Organisation | Software Carpentry Foundation |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | We are acting as the UK coordinators for Software Carpentry courses to teach researchers computing skills. Neil Chue Hong and Carole Goble were invited to join the board of the SCF. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The SCF provides materials and organises instructor training. We have therefore benefitted from the resources developed by partners within the Software Carpentry Foundation. |
| Impact | Over 30 workshops and 1000 learners trained in the UK across multiple disciplines. |
| Start Year | 2012 |
| Description | Software Preservation Network |
| Organisation | Software Preservation Network |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Collaboration on Software Preservation Network's Training and Education Working Group to develop resources around software preservation. Also input into SPN's future strategic direction through steering committee. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Collaboration on Software Preservation Network's Training and Education Working Group to develop resources around software preservation. |
| Impact | This collaboration is multi-disciplinary. Outputs have not yet been published. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | The Carpentries |
| Organisation | The Carpentries |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Coordination of Carpentries training events in the UK. Training of Carpentries instructors. Contribution of training material. Facilitation of development of new courses for social sciences and life sciences. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Production of training materials. Provision of central administrative infrastructure. Governance of open source materials production. Organisation of international workshops. |
| Impact | Multi-disciplinary. Training of hundreds of researchers in basic software engineering and data management and analysis skills. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Title | Checklist for a Software Management Plan (source code) (Version 1.0) |
| Description | A Software Management Plan (SMP) can help you to define a set of structures and goals to understand your research software including what you are going to develop; who the software is for (even if it is just for yourself); how you will deliver your software to its intended users; how it will help them; and how you will assess whether it has helped them, and contributed to research, in the ways that you intended. An SMP also helps you to understand how you can support those who wish to, or do, use your research software; how your software relates to other artefacts in your research ecosystem; and how you will ensure that your software remains available beyond the lifetime of your current project. This checklist will help you to write an SMP. It consists of sections that cover the key elements that an SMP should include. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Checklist implemented in France via OPIDoR: https://dmp.opidor.fr/ |
| URL | https://github.com/softwaresaved/software-management-plans |
| Title | CodeMeta Schema Version 1.0 |
| Description | CodeMeta contributors are creating a minimal metadata schema for science software and code, in JSON and XML. The goal of CodeMeta is to create a concept vocabulary that can be used to standardize the exchange of software metadata across repositories and organizations. CodeMeta started by comparing the software metadata used across multiple repositories, which resulted in the CodeMeta Metadata Crosswalk. That crosswalk was then used to generate a set of software metadata concepts, which were arranged into a JSON-LD context for serialization (see codemeta.jsonld, or an example CodeMeta document). |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Ability to crosswalk between metadata generated by popular code repositories and catalogues. |
| URL | https://github.com/CodeMeta/codemeta |
| Title | International RSE Survey analysis software |
| Description | Collaboration tool to create surveys and analyse data about Research Software Engineers around the world This software is used to create and analyse international surveys. It use csv files to store questions and answers that are later transformed into a limesurvey TSV file. The analysis are using python and are shared within jupyter notebooks. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | In 2016 the Software Sustainability Institute ran the first survey of Research Software Engineers (RSEs) - the people who write code in academia. This produced the first insight into the demographics, job satisfaction, and practices of RSEs. To support and broaden this work, the Institute will run the UK survey every year and - it is hoped - will expand the survey so that insight and comparison can be made across different countries. Ultimately, we hope that these results, the anonymised version of which will all be open licensed, will act as a valuable resource to understand and improve the working conditions for RSEs. In 2017 we also surveyed Canadian RSEs and we added four further countries, Germany, Netherlands, South Africa and USA. Our thanks to our partners: Scott Henwood (Canada), Stephan Janosch and Martin Hammitzsch (Germany), Ben van Werkhoven and Tom Bakker (Netherlands), Anelda van der Walt (South Africa) and Daniel Katz and Sandra Gesing (USA). In 2018 we have worked differently and created a survey for all countries (rather than one survey for each ones). |
| URL | https://github.com/softwaresaved/international-survey |
| Title | ResearchFish outcome analysis software |
| Description | This is a first pass at understanding software-related research outcomes recorded in ResearchFish. The data used has not been released, but can be downloaded from Gateway to Research. The forthcoming release will include data as well as software. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Unknown at present. |
| URL | https://github.com/softwaresaved/ResearchFish |
| Title | Software Assessment Framework |
| Description | The Software Assessment Framework is a pilot implementation to make it easier for developers to understand the "quality" of a piece of research software, which in turn will allow them to improve software reuse and increase recognition for good software development practice. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Insights achieved from this pilot implementation led to our acceptance as a founding partner of the Community Health Analytics Open Source Software (CHAOSS) initiative hosted by the Linux Foundation. |
| URL | https://github.com/softwaresaved/software-assessment-framework |
| Title | Software Deposit Guidance for Researchers (source code) (Version 1.0) |
| Description | esearch software is an integral part of the modern research ecosystem. Taken together, research software, alongside data, facilities, equipment and an overarching research question can be viewed as a research activity or experiment, worthy to be published. Conversely, a publication can be considered as a narrative that describes how the research objects are used together to reply to the research question. Depositing research software into a digital repository can offer significant benefits. By depositing not just papers, but software, and data sets, as well, researchers can store a more complete record of this ecosystem for future use to both the researchers who undertook the research and also the wider research community. Making research software available allows other researchers to inspect, replicate, reproduce and reuse the research, as manifested in the software, in the short term and to inspect, for the historical record, in the long term. It allows research software to remain available beyond the lifetime of any current project, or a researcher's current employment at a specific institution. Digital repositories can also provide unique persistent digital identifiers for software which can be cited and help researchers to get attribution and credit for their research software when it is used by others. The Software Sustainability Institute, funded by Jisc, developed a set of complementary guides covering the main aspects of depositing software into digital repositories. These guides are intended for researchers, principal investigators and research leaders and research data and digital repository managers. This deposit holds the sources of these guides, used to generate PDF and HTML (online) versions of the guides, and a PDF of the index page of the online version of the guides. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Cited in guidance from international research communities. |
| URL | https://github.com/softwaresaved/software-deposit-guidance |
| Title | Software Management Plans |
| Description | An extension of the DMPOnline webtool to allow for the creation and management of software management plans. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Impact | This has enabled the widely referenced DMPOnline tool developed and hosted by the Digital Curation Centre to be applied to software, and forms the basis of upcoming guidance for research funder software calls. |
| URL | https://www.software.ac.uk/software-management-plans |
| Title | Software Sustainability Institute Event Organisation Guide (SSI-EOG) |
| Description | The Software Sustainability Institute Event Organisation Guide (SSI-EOG) is host on Read the Docs - https://event-organisation-guide.readthedocs.io The GitHub project is available at - https://github.com/softwaresaved/event-organisation-guide The page is the release on Zenodo - https://zenodo.org/record/3970898 (the citation information on this page should be used when citing SSI-EOG, individual pages can be referenced from the Read the Docs site). |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/3970898 |
| Title | Software Sustainability Institute Event Organisation Guide (SSI-EOG) |
| Description | The first public release of the Software Sustainability Institute Event Organisation Guide (SSI-EOG) - see https://www.software.ac.uk/news/announcing-ssi-event-organisation-guide for further information! |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/3970897 |
| Title | lowFAT |
| Description | The Software Sustainability Institute's low effort Fellowship Administration Tool (lowFAT) https://softwaresaved.github.io/lowfat/ |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Unknown at present. |
| URL | https://github.com/softwaresaved/lowfat |
| Title | uCONFLY |
| Description | uCONFLY is an unconference resource management system. It provides document templates for a range of resource types and a means to allow event attendees to created documents based upon the templates made available to them. The production deployment of uCONFLY is hosted at https://uconfly.org/. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | Used in various unconference workshops - still in beta phase of rollout. |
| URL | https://uconfly.org/ |
| Description | Big Bang Fair |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Participation in Big Bang Fair, national schools science event attended by tens of thousands. Creation of materials providing guidance on ways to learn coding for school children and parents. Approximately 800 people picked up promotional materials. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017 |
| Description | Dagstuhl Workshop: Implementing FAIR Data Infrastructures |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | "Open Science" reflects a fundamental paradigm shift in making scientific research more accessible and reusable. The Open Science movement has recently gained a strong momentum worldwide with an increasing demand for reliable and sustainable research data infrastructures that enable researchers to cooperate on data and share results. On the European level, for example, the European Open Science Cloud is being developed. In this context the so-called FAIR principles seem to become a common and widely accepted conceptual basis for future research data infrastructures. These principles describe the core characteristics of data use, but they do not define or suggest any technological implementations. Thus, there is still a great lack of models, infrastructures and services available showing how FAIR research data infrastructures can be implemented. Computer science can greatly contribute to this important field. The interdisciplinary Dagstuhl Perspectives Workshop "Implementing FAIR Data Infrastructures" aims at bringing together computer scientists with digital infrastructure experts from different domains. The central goal is to discuss the key elements required for the transition of scientific e-infrastructures and services to Open Science from the perspective of computer science as well as from different stakeholder perspectives. The workshop will discuss requirements, common mechanisms, and best practices for FAIR data management platforms and services, with a particular focus on innovative tools and methods for sharing research data and on principles of how research data can be represented in an interoperable way to foster linking and reusing data across community borders. The Workshop will publish a manifesto of recommendations and an inventory of tools & services for implementing FAIR data principles and other targeted aspects of Open Science in future research data infrastructures and data management services. It will further shape the role that the field of computer science has to play in advancing Open Science practices. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.dagstuhl.de/en/program/calendar/semhp/?semnr=18472 |