ReSA becomes a fiscally sponsored project of Code for Science and Society

ReSA is now a fiscally sponsored project of Code for Science and Society (CS&S). CS&S are a US-based 501(c)(3) non-profit supporting open collaboration in public interest technology through fiscal sponsorships and community centered programs supporting sustainable open source. ReSA and CS&S share an alignment of missions, with both aiming to empower communities to work together in the software space. ReSA looks forward to engaging with CS&S on financial, administrative and strategic issues.

Additions to ReSA Zotero library

ReSA continues to add our Zotero group library of resources that identify the significant role that software plays in research. The latest addition is Challenges and prospects of the intersection of humanities and data science: A white paper from The Alan Turing Institute. The paper outlines recommendations to support, and further, interdisciplinary research in data science and humanities. Those related to research software include:

• Best practices in the use and evaluation of computational tools: Use practices that ensure transparency and openness in research, and training programmes to help choose the most suitable computational tools in humanities research.
• Reproducible and open research: Promote transparent and reproducible research in the humanities, including data, code, workflows, computational environments, methods, and documentation.
• Training, education, and expertise: Upskill humanities researchers in quantitative and computational methods and incorporate these methods in undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Another addition is a 2018 report by NSF. CI2030: Future Advanced Cyberinfrastructure: A report of the NSF Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure. It’s equally useful to have past references that support recognition and valuing of research software to show when these issues became a priority. The 9 recommendations in this report include:

• NSF should provide mechanisms to improve the quality and sustainability of research software, especially community codes that are used by a broad community.
• NSF should work with the academic community to determine mechanisms for long-term support of cyberinfrastructure technologists who are increasingly critical to science and engineering research.

This report provides an analysis of the community response to the NSF Request for Information on Future Needs for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure to Support Science and Engineering Research (NSF CI 2030).

Community news

Save the date for the SORSE launch on Wed 2nd Sept,13:00 UTC. Register here. With the cancellation of many research software events in 2020, the SORSE team have been working hard over the last couple of months to put together a series of online events to help you learn new skills, keep up to date with what is happening in the world of research software engineering and connect with the international research software community.

SORSE has an open call for submissions of various session types including talks, poster sessions, software demos and mini workshops with monthly deadlines for review cycles. Our next submission deadline is 23:59 UTC on 31st August 2020. A mailing list that will be used only for event updates and notifications is available. If you’d like to be notified of upcoming SORSE events, you can join the list.

The US NSF has issued a 2020 CSSI solicitation, with proposals due 28 October. “The Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation (CSSI) umbrella program seeks to enable funding opportunities that are flexible and responsive to the evolving and emerging needs in cyberinfrastructure (CI). This program continues the CSSI program by removing the distinction between software and data elements/framework implementations, and instead emphasizing integrated CI services, quantitative metrics with targets for delivery and usage of these services, and community creation.”

If you’d like to suggest items for inclusion in ReSA News then please contact us. If you would to engage with the ReSA community, then join the ReSA Google group to receive email updates. To subscribe send a blank email to research-software-alliance+subscribe@googlegroups.com

ReSA’s vision is that research software be recognised and valued as a fundamental and vital component of research worldwide. The ReSA mission is to bring research software communities together to collaborate on the advancement of research software.