software sustainability institute “doing science properly in the digital age” uk...
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Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk“Doing Science
Properly in the Digital Age”UK e-Infrastructure Academic User Community Forum12 September 2012, Digital Research 2012, OxfordNeil Chue Hong (@npch) [email protected]
Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
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
Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
People
UK Research Computing Ecosystem
Computing Communities
…
Network/Collaboration
Instruments
Software Data Centres
Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.ukObservation 1:
Software is 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
www.software.ac.uk
Observation 2:A culture of re-use rather than re-invention is not widespread Corollary: we have wasted effort and increased siloing
Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
Observation 3:Many people are “embarrassed” about software
Corollary: something is broken in the way we regard, recognise and reward software
Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
The Foundations of Digital Research
Software
Software
Software
Re-usable Re-producible
Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
Gap 1: Software Skills Training
Basic Advanced
ProgrammingFocussed
(Tools)
Research
Focussed
(methods)
SoftwareCarpentry
Programming 101
SummerSchools
Advanced HPC Training
HPC Short CoursesDoctoral Training
MSc in HPC / scientific
computing
Programming 201
Who fills this gap?
Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
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
Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
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
Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
Gap 3: Lack of recognition and reward
• 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
www.software.ac.uk
Gap 4: Software Maturity and Management
Soft
war
e pr
olife
ratio
n
Time
CustomisationInnovation Consolidation
Not all software should make it to the next stageManagement changes through time, requiring planning
Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
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