Software is a fundamental part of most research, nowadays. Very often it is home made, developed by the research teams to analyse or simulate their data, or to share and present their results to the world. It is increasingly recognised that better software leads to better research, and that a lack of quality and rigour when creating or using software might result into catastrophic situations, like the retraction of high impact papers.
In this section we offer several ways in which the RSE Team can help principal investigators and team leaders to identify what things could be done better in their teams in relation to research software and take the steps to improve them.
Research software culture assessment
We can work with a research team (with everyone in the team, from PIs to Msc students) for a few hours or days (up to 2 days for free) to evaluate their research software culture practices and advice on ways of improving them.
We try to understand what software they use, how they use it, what practices for version control (if any) are in place, how software maintenance is handed over when someone leaves the team, the communication channels between those who develop software and those who use it to report bugs or other unexpected behaviours, and dissemination of the software to other colleagues and collaborators, among others.
Based on this analysis, we advise on resources, training or people to get in touch with to support the adoption of modern, sustainable and robust software development practices by the whole team.
Training
We offer dedicated training sessions for research teams to improve their skills and the adoption of software development best practices. The courses currently available are:
- Introduction to using Git and GitHub for software development
- Further Git and GitHub for effective collaboration
- Essential software engineering for researchers
- Introduction to testing C++ code
We can also develop bespoke courses (for a fee) on any topic the RSE Team has enough expertise on.
Grant and fellowship application support
Many grant and fellowships have a software component. Sometimes that's the main goal of the project and in other cases it is a by-product of the research being planned. Either way, including a well-thought software management plan shows that the applicant has considered carefully how to make the most of any outcomes of the research being funded, including software, which is often oversighted, in order to achieve the maximum impact.
We can help researchers to shape their grant and fellowship applications by advising on the appropriate language to use when talking about software, on potential technologies, pathways for dissemination and software publishing, among others. Other aspects of the software lifecycle, like long term maintenance and community engagement will also be discussed and, when relevant, captured in the application.