Software Sustainability Institute Engaging the software in research community EGI Community Forum 2013, 8-12 April 2013, Manchester Shoaib Sufi, Community Manager, Software Sustainability Institute Partners: Funders:

Software Sustainability Institute The Software Sustainability Institute A national facility for promoting software in world-class research 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 Capability building and promoting reproducible research Funding courtesy of EPSRC EP/H043160/1

Software Sustainability Institute Why engage the Software in Research Community ? Serving effectively – guiding what we should do Running efficiently – using our resources for maximum benefit Growing awareness – today PhDs are tomorrows PIs  “Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast” – Peter Drucker

Software Sustainability Institute How we engage the community By consulting and involving …  people who use, build, manage, need software to help or support research Openly engaging the wider research community …  Agents, Super Pals, (Champions), Fellows Using cross institutional experience …  Edinburgh, Southampton, Manchester and Oxford  Being embedded in projects, networks and research groups

Software Sustainability Institute Open engagement – the deal In exchange for £3000/person expenses, we gain:  Intelligence reports from conferences  A broad range of expertise against which we can review ideas  New contacts and dissemination routes  Representation from “insiders” within the selected research domains  Running capacity building workshops (e.g. SWC)  Taking part in policy forums  Other – unanticipated activities

Software Sustainability Institute Agents/Super Pals 2011/12 Materials chemistry Sports science Metagenomics Coastal Engineering Clinical physics Semantic web Software development practice Environmental sustainability Glaciology Bioinformatics In 2011, we recruited 10 early-career to gather intelligence from their research domains and 2 mid career researchers Super Pals SelUCCR champions – SelUCCR partnership between UK NES and SSI

Software Sustainability Institute Travel 2011/12

Software Sustainability Institute Outcomes 2011/ Agent reports per month (32 reports in total) A proposal submitted to NERC An introduction to speak at Royal Statistical Society An article in Ariadne Many blog posts Short-term contacts from Agent reports Helpful feedback on ideas (CW, useful resources, where they publish software, do they use cloud, feedback for Fellow programme, help they need for funding proposals, authored some guides, most popular blog post IPython) New visitors to the website (~1800 unique visitors) Recruitment of one of the Agents as Staff member Opportunity to talk at PyCon UK Promotion of SSI at BGI Aiding Agents recruitment Identification of a key project where SSI could help (they would like a review of architecture post release of v2 aka EpiCollect+)

Software Sustainability Institute /14 Fellows programme 123 applicants, 27 shortlisted  Internal and external reviewers (including at least one academic)  Face to face and online selection meetings 15 Fellows announced in November 2012  Passion, time, interesting research, clarity, understanding SSI were all factors

Software Sustainability Institute Richard Abel, 3D imaging techniques Caitlin Bentley, International development Alex Chartier, ionosphere forecasting Mike Croucher, Mathematical software Adam Crymble, Digital humanities James Hetherington, ‘Research software engineer’ Cefn Hoile, Kayla Iacovino, Volcanology Stephan Lautenschlager, virtual paleontology Nick Pearce, Sociology & Anthropology Allen Pope, Glaciology Anna Powell-Smith, Freelance Barry Rowlingson, spatial epidemiology Melody Sandells, snow physics Robin Wilson, satellite imaging Early mid Early mid

Software Sustainability Institute Fellows Facts Areas covered (imperfect clustering)  Medical: 3D imaging techniques, Epidemiology  ICT: physical computing in education  Environmental: volcanology, virtual paleontology, glaciology, snow physics, space weather, satellite imaging  Computational support: ‘research software developers’ x2  Information applications: international development, data visualisation  Humanities: textual classification, sociology & anthropology Career stage (8 early, 7 mid) Gender (4F, 11M) Reminder: Chosen on commitment and passion over domain  Although important domains and interesting domains were factors

Software Sustainability Institute What makes a good recruit Enough time for the win-win; activities beneficial to themselves and the objectives of the SSI- enthusiastic, motivated and wanting to make an impact in their area active and engaged in their own area, with a track record of generating ideas a good communicator, able to talk about their work and understand others work a willing advocate of research software best practice able to act as a conduit and information source into their community Demonstrate some common ground between their works and interest and those of the Institute Important or interesting research domain

Software Sustainability Institute Representative set You don’t Go for important/interesting science And people with energy …. It is a target rich environment – lots of good people to help and then inspire others

Software Sustainability Institute What does a Fellow do Attend conferences  What software used in a domain, important software enabled research in their domains, giving us data on any surveys they have done, promoting the SSI and it’s message – esp. the themes (e.g. reproducible research), giving us the specific names of contacts we can help, blogging about the conference, tweeting Running capability building workshop  Software Carpentry at their sites  Running training courses in their own software for use in their domains preparing with SSI best practice (e.g. SES - ) Policy work  Attending policy relevant workshops

Software Sustainability Institute Serendipity Attending our advisory board  Making EPSRC happy Attending a Train the Trainers workshop for a new EU wide programme  Influence for them, expertise for us Being able to make existing money go further  A trip to Oz Discussions on feedback useful (catalogue of visualisation tools for researchers, blogging about how people integrate such tools into their science)  Even though they cancelled going 8 showed a strong interest in authoring a ‘Software in your domain’ to aid insiders and to give outsiders a view in  Likely focus of Fellows 6-monthly meeting Asking for material to promote SSI at events they normally attend and not funded by us Joining funds together to be able to run a bigger workshop where there is some domain overlap

Software Sustainability Institute How we ok funds Request (a month before at the latest) Review by Fellows Management team Either approve, ask for clarification, deny Once event completed, report received and then claim processed.

Software Sustainability Institute Challenges I am out of the country | I have a lecture to train people going on a field trip; Iwon’t be able to make the meeting which is part of my terms and conditions. Just getting on the plane … will you pay for my trip ? Can you pay for my friend to give a few hours of training to my team ? Can you buy some software for me to help me with my research ? I have to move abroad can I still be a Fellow ?

Software Sustainability Institute Benefits For the Institute:  Sanity check – are we doing the right thing  Highlight opportunities; casting the net wider  Credibility  Identification of project most likely to benefit with help  Behavioral change; real benefit others likely to take heed. For the Fellows:  Money to attend events  Arrange events  Higher profile  More contacts  Ideas from their peer group

Software Sustainability Institute Outputs and Outcomes

Software Sustainability Institute Forever Fellows For successful Fellows Something for the CV Discount/Free attendance at SSI Events e.g. CW Still do work in the name of SSI (with prior checking) Still have their voice heard Allow us to pass ideas/leads by them 1 or 2 Fellows worth of cash for them to bid into Maintain contact in case we would like them to go to an event

Software Sustainability Institute Recommendations Clear about type of person you want Be rigorous but fair at selection Magnanimous after that (but polite and firm if needed) Clear guidelines and suggestions Good rapport Chasing expenses for them Quick turn around on requests (e.g. we are working on the decisions) Get them together early to bond as a group and let them know that ideas are welcome and give them a forum to discuss (e.g. mailing group) Help them with your network Ask them to help you with their network Don’t be afraid to ask them to do stuff you think they might be interested in Manage them as individuals Help create a group feeling

Software Sustainability Institute Future Challenges Running the Fellows programme adaptively Recruiting new Fellows Making best use of Fellows – win-win and not taking up too much time Cross network challenges Integrating Fellows Forever Maximising outputs from event reports Setup takes some effort; running it actively is where the benefits are realised.  If they see their contributions helping they will be more motivated to contribute

Software Sustainability Institute Questions ?