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The Software Sustainability Institute

“Doing Science 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. The Software Sustainability Institute.

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The Software Sustainability Institute

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  1. “Doing Science Properly in the Digital Age”UK e-Infrastructure Academic User Community Forum12 September 2012, Digital Research 2012, OxfordNeil Chue Hong (@npch) N.ChueHong@software.ac.uk

  2. The Software Sustainability Institute 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 tosupport the community developing andusing research software Supported by EPSRC Grant EP/H043160/1

  3. UK Research Computing Ecosystem Communities … People Computing Software Data Centres Network/Collaboration Instruments

  4. Observation 1:Software is pervasive across researchCorollary: software is bleeding edge and long-tail Demanding users are coming from arts + humanities, economics, and social science as well as sciences

  5. Observation 2:A culture of re-use rather than re-invention is not widespreadCorollary: we have wasted effort and increased siloing

  6. Observation 3:Many people are “embarrassed” about software Corollary: something is broken in the way we regard, recognise and reward software

  7. The Foundations of Digital Research Re-usable Re-producible Software Software Software

  8. Gap 1: Software Skills Training Research Focussed (methods) Summer Schools Software Carpentry Who fills this gap? Doctoral Training HPC Short Courses MSc in HPC / scientific computing Advanced HPC Training Programming Focussed (Tools) Programming 101 Programming 201 Basic Advanced

  9. Software philosophy as part of the process • 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

  10. Gap 2: Lack of support infrastructure • 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

  11. Gap 3: Lack of recognition and reward • Is there an anachronism in the way we conduct and recogniseresearch? • 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

  12. Gap 4: Software Maturity and Management Not all software should make it to the next stage Management changes through time, requiring planning Software proliferation Innovation Consolidation Customisation Time

  13. A More Manageable Ecosystem • 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

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