Software, Training and Users Panel: the Software Sustainability Institute's View
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1) Software is now pervasive across all areas of research but a culture of re-use is lacking, leading to wasted effort and increased silos. 2) There are gaps in skills training, software infrastructure support like repositories, and recognition/reward for software work. 3) Addressing these gaps would help create a more manageable research software ecosystem that discourages duplicative work and supports software at different stages of its lifecycle.
Software, Training and Users Panel: the Software Sustainability Institute's View
- 1. “Doing Science www.software.ac.uk Properly in the Digital Age” UK e-Infrastructure Academic User Community Forum 12 September 2012, Digital Research 2012, Oxford Neil Chue Hong (@npch) N.ChueHong@software.ac.uk Software Sustainability Institute
- 2. The Software Sustainability Institute www.software.ac.uk A national facility for cultivating world- class research through 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 • Developing the policy and tools to support the community developing and using research software Supported by EPSRC Software Sustainability Institute Grant EP/H043160/1
- 3. UK Research Computing Ecosystem www.software.ac.uk People Computing Software Communities Data Centres … Network/Collaboration Instruments Software Sustainability Institute
- 4. Observation 1: Software is www.software.ac.uk pervasive across research Corollary: software is bleeding edge and long-tail Demanding users are coming from arts + humanities, economics, and social science as well as sciences Software Sustainability Institute
- 5. Observation 2: A culture of re-use www.software.ac.uk rather than re- invention is not widespread Corollary: we have wasted effort and increased siloing Software Sustainability Institute
- 6. Observation 3: www.software.ac.uk Many people are “embarrassed” about software Corollary: something is broken in the way we regard, recognise and reward software Software Sustainability Institute
- 7. The Foundations of Digital Research www.software.ac.uk Re- Re-usable search Re-producible Software Careers Software Recognition / Reward Software Skills and Capability Software Sustainability Institute
- 8. Gap 1: Software Skills Training www.software.ac.uk Research Software Summer Focussed Schools Carpentry (methods) Who fills this gap? HPC Short Courses MSc in HPC / scientific computing Advanced HPC Training Programming Focussed Programming Programming (Tools) 101 201 Basic Advanced Software Sustainability Institute
- 9. Software philosophy as part of the process www.software.ac.uk • Foundations of scientific computing in undergraduate courses Like presentation skills • Methods of scientific computing in postgraduate courses Like statistics and ethics • Show the benefits from the knowledge and methods of digital research Not just programming 101 Software Sustainability Institute
- 10. Gap 2: Lack of support infrastructure www.software.ac.uk • For example: no digital repository which satisfies the criteria: Open to anyone in the UK to archive software Software associated with an OSI license Provide a unique, permanent identifier Publishes a preservation/curation/sustainability plan • This is just deposit, not even preservation or sustainability Software Sustainability Institute
- 11. Gap 3: Lack of recognition and reward www.software.ac.uk • Is there an anachronism in the way we conduct and recognise research? REF references software as an output but it is still not easy to get recognition • Software careers Researchers who use software Researcher-Developers Research Software Engineers Research Software Support Research Systems Providers Software Sustainability Institute
- 12. Gap 4: Software Maturity and Management www.software.ac.uk Not all software should make it to the next stage Software proliferation Management changes through time, requiring planning Innovation Consolidation Customisation Time Software Sustainability Institute
- 13. A More Manageable Ecosystem www.software.ac.uk • Discourage duplicative software development in research grants by rewarding reuse and long-term development Need to change perceptions so that software is seen as valuable But understand when it should not proceed to next stage • Different stages should be managed and funded separately Maintenance vs. research vs. development • A skilled researcher base is the key in the digital age Create a larger proportion of enabled researchers and provide the ramps to go from desktop to high-end infrastructure Allow and encourage specialism and collaboration Software Sustainability Institute
Editor's Notes
- #3: Software reviews and refactoring, collaborations to develop your project, guidance and best practice on software development, project management, community building, publicity and more…Drawing on pool of specialists to drive the continued improvement and impact of research software developed by and for researchersProviding services for research software users and developersDeveloping research community interactions and capacityPromoting research software best practice and capability
- #11: http://www.flickr.com/photos/esva/2364906768
- #12: CPD?
- #13: Ultimately the Software Sustainability Institute would like to seebasic scientific computing to be taught in the same way thatstatistics are a fundamental part of any researchers toolbox. Likewisean understanding of software programming should be seen as equivalentto the understanding of presenting and disseminating your work whichis expected of graduates.A basic syllabus and list of recognised teaching providers ensuresthere is a way of providing excellent foundation training inscientific computing via the CDTs. Specialist interdisciplinaryscientific computing CDTs which concentrate on instilling the bestcomputational, data analysis and software development techniques intheir doctoral students will provide the UK with the next generationof world-class scientists.