Publication Date:
2022-09-29
Description:
Scientific software takes on an increasingly prominent role in research. In particular in the
sciences software has become an indispensable element in the research process. The way we
handle software has a significant influence on the quality of research results, their traceability and
reproducibility.
In order to strengthen the recognition of scientific results achieved by software and to improve its
visibility, the scientific community is actively working on concepts and solutions enabling
researchers to publish software, cite it and be credited for it.
For software to be a valuable and citeable contribution to science, the publication of scientific
software must meet the quality criteria of the scientific discourse. As with data publication, defined
processes and persistent identifiers should be used to make the results of research reproducible.
Also, the specific needs of research have to be addressed and joined with experience gained in
the field of development of free and open source software. A common understanding of handling
scientific software with defined processes must be developed jointly. These processes have to
address questions regarding quality assurance, versioning and documentation, traceability,
reproducibility and reusability. Furthermore, the archiving of source code and executables, the use
of persistent identifiers, and metrics measuring productivity, impact, and recognition have to be
addressed.
Especially when looking at software in the context of scientific publications only insufficient
solutions exist to date. Even though it is possible to mint DOIs to identify archived source code
copies, quality ensured by reviews is not addressed properly. But deserving credit for a software
publication requires measures assessing the value of the published software. Subjectspecific
reviews paired with softwarespecific expertise would open up new possibilities leveraging
interdisciplinarity and the interplay of complementary scientific fields such as geosciences and
computer science. Thus software publications and properly arranged reviews would foster the
exchange in order to establish best practices from computer science in geosciences and to
enhance subjectspecific software successively after its original publication.
Repository Name:
EPIC Alfred Wegener Institut
Type:
Conference
,
notRev
Format:
application/pdf
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