36 research outputs found
Research Software Engineering in 2030
This position paper for an invited talk on the "Future of eScience" discusses
the Research Software Engineering Movement and where it might be in 2030.
Because of the authors' experiences, it is aimed globally but with examples
that focus on the United States and United Kingdom.Comment: Invited paper for 2023 IEEE Conference on eScienc
Research Software Engineers: State of the Nation Report 2017
Most research would be impossible without software, and this reliance is forcing a rethink of the skills needed in a traditional research group. With the emergence of software as the pre-eminent research tool used across all disciplines, comes the realisation that a significant majority of results are based, ultimately, on the skill of the experts who design and build that software.
The UK has led the world in supporting a new role in academia: the Research Software Engineer (RSE). This report describes the new expert community that has flourished in UK research, details the successes that have been achieved, and the barriers that prevent further progress
Addressing Research Software Sustainability via Institutes
Research software is essential to modern research, but it requires ongoing
human effort to sustain: to continually adapt to changes in dependencies, to
fix bugs, and to add new features. Software sustainability institutes, amongst
others, develop, maintain, and disseminate best practices for research software
sustainability, and build community around them. These practices can both
reduce the amount of effort that is needed and create an environment where the
effort is appreciated and rewarded. The UK SSI is such an institute, and the US
URSSI and the Australian AuSSI are planning to become institutes, and this
extended abstract discusses them and the strengths and weaknesses of this
approach.Comment: accepted by ICSE 2021 BokSS Workshop
(https://bokss.github.io/bokss2021/
The Software Sustainability Institute:Changing Research Software Attitudes and Practices
To effect change, the Software Sustainability Institute works with researchers, developers, funders, and infrastructure providers to identify and address key issues with research software
Fourth Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE4)
This report records and discusses the Fourth Workshop on Sustainable Software
for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE4). The report includes a
description of the keynote presentation of the workshop, the mission and vision
statements that were drafted at the workshop and finalized shortly after it, a
set of idea papers, position papers, experience papers, demos, and lightning
talks, and a panel discussion. The main part of the report covers the set of
working groups that formed during the meeting, and for each, discusses the
participants, the objective and goal, and how the objective can be reached,
along with contact information for readers who may want to join the group.
Finally, we present results from a survey of the workshop attendees
Community Organizations: Changing the Culture in Which Research Software Is Developed and Sustained
Software is the key crosscutting technology that enables advances in
mathematics, computer science, and domain-specific science and engineering to
achieve robust simulations and analysis for science, engineering, and other
research fields. However, software itself has not traditionally received
focused attention from research communities; rather, software has evolved
organically and inconsistently, with its development largely as by-products of
other initiatives. Moreover, challenges in scientific software are expanding
due to disruptive changes in computer hardware, increasing scale and complexity
of data, and demands for more complex simulations involving multiphysics,
multiscale modeling and outer-loop analysis. In recent years, community members
have established a range of grass-roots organizations and projects to address
these growing technical and social challenges in software productivity,
quality, reproducibility, and sustainability. This article provides an overview
of such groups and discusses opportunities to leverage their synergistic
activities while nurturing work toward emerging software ecosystems
Research Software Sustainability: Report on a Knowledge Exchange Workshop
Without software, modern research would not be possible. Understandably, people tend to marvel at results rather than the tools used in their discovery, which means the fundamental role of software in research has been largely overlooked. But whether it is widely recognised or not, research is inexorably connected to the software that is used to generate results, and if we continue to overlook software we put at risk the reliability and reproducibility of the research itself. The adoption of software is accompanied by new risks - many of which are unknown to the majority of the research community. The practices of software sustainability minimise these risks and help to increase trust in research results, increase the rate of discovery, increase return on investment and ensure that research data remains readable and usable for longer. Funders are well aligned with the goals of software sustainability: both seek to support reliable, trusted research. This means that funders are well placed to play a pivotal role in advocating software sustainability. Funders can help raise awareness, and can make some simple, low-cost changes, such as encouraging the adoption of software management plans, that could lead to significant improvements in the software used in research. Improving software sustainability requires a number of changes: some technical and others societal, some small and others significant. We must start by raising awareness of researchers’ reliance on software. This goal will become easier if we recognise the valuable contribution that software makes to research - and reward those people who invest their time into developing reliable and reproducible software. We must educate the research community on the issues raised by software adoption, and provide training in the software engineering skills that are needed to overcome them. We cannot rely on researchers to adopt all of the skills needed for software sustainability, we must also allow research groups to recruit software experts, and we must create organisations that develop and disseminate expertise in software sustainability. The adoption of software has led to significant advances in research. But if we do not change our research practices, the continued rise in software use will be accompanied by a rise in retractions. Ultimately, anyone who is concerned about the reliability and reproducibility of research should be concerned about software sustainability. This argument alone may rely too much on the stick and not enough on the carrot. To that end, we must also show that software sustainability promises to identify and make available the software that is most likely to advance research
Research Software Sustainability: Report on Knowledge Exchange Workshop
The report introduces software sustainability, provides definitions, clearly demonstrates that software is not the same as data and illustrates aspects of sustainability in the software lifecycle. The recommendations state that improving software sustainability requires a number of changes: some technical and others societal, some small and others significant. We must start by raising awareness of researchers’ reliance on software. This goal will become easier if we recognise the valuable contribution that software makes to research – and reward those people who invest their time into developing reliable and reproducible software.
The adoption of software has led to significant advances in research. But if we do not change our research practices, the continued rise in software use will be accompanied by a rise in retractions. Ultimately, anyone who is concerned about the reliability and reproducibility of research should be concerned about software sustainability.
Beside highlighting the benefits of software sustainability and addressing the societal and technical barriers to software sustainability, the report provides access to expertise in software sustainability and outlines the role of funders. The report concludes with a short landscape of national activities in Europe and outside Europe. As a result of the workshop steps will be explored to establish European coordination and cooperation of national initiatives