Sustainability Training Workshop - Intro to the SSI

Introduction to the Software Sustainability Institute 12 December 2011 Neil Chue Hong [email_address] sus·tain tr.v. sus·tained, sus·tain·ing, sus·tains; n. sus·taina·bili·ty; adj. sus·taina·ble 1. To keep in existence; maintain .

Changing role of software Software now has a longer lifetime of effectiveness than hardware And people’s knowledge is even longer The right software makes the hardware exploitable by more researchers Allows computing to be treated as a commodity asset Demanding users of computational infrastructure are coming from arts + humanities / social science Software frameworks must support all types of app A culture of reuse rather than reinvention is not widespread Originality is good but must be balanced by consolidation How do we support this?

Scientists and their software “ Sustainability is not an issue for researchers, we want others to take the software over subject to IP issues” “ Sustainability is a big issue, we are producing complex tools we want to continue to use but it’s not clear how they’ll be sustained” Quotes taken from ENGAGE interviews

The Software Sustainability Institute A national facility for building better software Better software enables better research Software reaches boundaries in its development cycle that prevent improvement, growth and adoption Providing the expertise and services needed to negotiate to the next stage Software reviews and refactoring, collaborations to develop your project, guidance and best practice on software development, project management, community building, publicity and more…

SSI Mission and Vision “ A national facility for building better research software” Our vision is to make software useful for future generations of researchers by improving usability, maintainability and quality. Increasing research productivity by enabling more people to use software Delivering added value by leveraging our expertise and connections Ensuring researchers can continue to use their chosen software as a cornerstone of their research

SSI: Long Term Goals Provision of useful, effective services for research software community Development and sharing of research community intelligence and interactions Promotion of research software best practice Mantra: Keep the software in its respective community Work with the community, to increase ability Don’t introduce dependency on SSI as the developer Expand and exploit networks and opportunities

SSI: Provision of Services Collaborative Projects Improve specific software and transfer knowledge and skills to community Sustainability Surgeries and Workshops Improve knowledge within programme areas and raise awareness in community

SSI: Promotion of Best Practice Case Studies Raise awareness, make it easier to relate to subject Technology Watch Identify and track software trends and common issues Training Materials and Best Practice Guides Improve knowledge transfer to community. Increase visibility and interest from non-connected community

SSI: Community Intelligence Events and Roadshows Raise awareness in community SuperPALs and Agents networks Understand community requirements, overlaps, issues Partnership with other organisations Ensure related organisations work together to provide for research community E.g. through SeIUCCR, with DSR International engagement Ensure best practice is consistently applied given strong international nature of research communities

The Agents Network A group of “software-savvy” researchers from all disciplines Agents connect their research discipline to the Institute Provide conference intelligence and more http://www.software.ac.uk/agents

Working with communities Collaborative Projects SuperPALs Agents Partners Community Intelligence Roadshows Case Studies Best Practice Workshops / Training Community Interventions Project Selection Research Communities Analysis of intelligence Publicise Information

Case Study: e-Humanities textual studies TextVRE team at CeRCH, Kings College London Developed an environment which is used to integrate various tools used in the e-Humanities textual studies lifecycle Builds on the German TextGrid project, and many other existing tools SSI’s work means the software is can be run “out of the box” – an important requirement for the researchers Developed a VM image containging the TextVRE installation Improve installation instructions Develop tests to check each installed component Improve modularisation to allow others to contribute and maintain Feeding back work to TextGrid http://textvre.cerch.kcl.ac.uk

Case Study: NeISS Evaluate impact of traffic control measures over next 5/10/15 years Access baseline demographic data about the city Execute simulation of traffic system and population Visualise simulation outputs Augment with new forms of data Run dynamic models to assess future patterns (congestion, health, social inequality)

Case Study: Climate Policy Modelling CIAS team at Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia Develop linked climate and economic models for detailed analysis Their software was not ready to be used by other groups One researcher/developer at UEA, several users SSI’s work means the software is robust enough that it can be installed and used by others Enabled use of the software by the WWFN’s Climascope project and James Cook University Documented software to allow extensions by contributors Made it easier to maintain and backup Added job scheduling to improve modeling throughput New modelling framework enables new models i.e. new science http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/research/cias

Case Study: Scottish Brain Imaging Research Centre Brain Research Imaging Centre, Edinburgh Develop PrivacyGuard software, a DICOM image deidentification toolkit Created software to support new multispectral colouring modulation and variance identification technique (“MCMxxxVI”) to identify white matter lesions that are indicative of declining cognitive ability BRIC are not principally software developers, but do provide software to other researchers SSI’s work means the software has been reviewed and refactored Looked at exploitation Usability review, Naming/trademark review Made it easier for BRIC staff to maintain and develop Move to standard repositories, testing and documentation processes Examination of licencing for MCMxxxVI Extraction and refactoring to create standalone tools http://www.software.ac.uk/who-do-we-work/brain-research-imaging-centre-edinburgh http://www.bric.ed.ac.uk/

Collaborations Building new research collaborations 21-22 March 2012, Oxford Workshop

A National Facility for Research Software Become our next collaborators! Email: [email_address] Blog: http://www.software.ac.uk/blog Twitter: twitter.com/SoftwareSaved SlideShare: slideshare.net/SoftwareSaved YouTube: youtube.com/user/SoftwareSaved Telephone: +44 (0) 131 650 5030 Pilot collaborators: Fusion Energy Climate Policy Geospatial Linked Data Crystal Structure Brain Imaging Scholarly Journals

Sustainability Training Workshop - Intro to the SSI

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