Where does it go from here? The place of software in digital repositories

This work was supported by EPSRC Grant EP/H043160/1 and the JISC project "Clarifying the Purpose and Benefits of Preserving Software"The open repositories community has made great strides in recent years in addressing interoperability, policy and providing the arguments for open access and sharing. One aspect of open research which has come to prominence is the importance of software as a fundamental part of reproducible research, which in turn raises issues around the preservation of software. In this short paper, I will describe some of the work that the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) has been doing to address the structural and policy issues which currently present a barrier to the deposit and use of software in open repositories

Minimal information for reusable scientific software

<p>One of the biggest challenges for developers of scientific software is understanding how best to make the software reusable. A particular problem is that the concept of reusability combines many different concerns, including whether the software can be reused, how it can be reused, and by whom. This paper looks at the concept of software reusability from the perspective of the software engineer and the researcher. It proposes a multi-level framework for improving the reusability of scientific software, which minimises the information and effort required such that it is easier for scientific software developers, who are often researchers, to provide appropriate levels of information to support reuse.</p

Understanding Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity Challenges Within the Research Software Community

Research software -- specialist software used to support or undertake research -- is of huge importance to researchers. It contributes to significant advances in the wider world and requires collaboration between people with diverse skills and backgrounds. Analysis of recent survey data provides evidence for a lack of diversity in the Research Software Engineer community. We identify interventions which could address challenges in the wider research software community and highlight areas where the community is becoming more diverse. There are also lessons that are applicable, more generally, to the field of software development around recruitment from other disciplines and the importance of welcoming communities.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures and tables, SE4Science21 track at 2021 International Conference on Computational Scienc