Good Practices Primer - Code and Software (community enhanced).docx

"As organizations develop open science policies pertaining to code and software, they can maximize their open source investments by considering the following issues: ● Timing . Does the funder or institutional policy require that code or software be made openly available immediately upon the posting of research findings (e.g., publication of an article, deposit of a dataset), or with some embargo (noting that open components remain open throughout)? Will institutions and researchers develop policies for community development of code throughout the entire lifecycle? ● Financial Support. W ill the relevant policy maker provide funding to defray costs of preparing and/or depositing the code or software, as well as providing the ongoing support to the community that receives or supports the code ? I f so, is there a cap on the amount? Must the researcher explicitly account for these expenses at the time of proposal development or project design? ● Viability, Sustainability , Future Proofing and Maintenance . Is there an existing community of developers or users that could be engaged or leveraged? If necessary, what is the viability of forming a new community with skill, interest, capacity and freedom to develop and maintain the code? What are the expectations for the duration and extent to which code should be kept up to date? Is there funding to support community development, ongoing maintenance of the software, or dependencies of the software? Is there a plan for sustainability of the community of developers and users? ● Proprietary Software. To the extent that some or all of the code base upon which research relies cannot be put under an open source license, what steps can be taken to reduce restrictions on its reuse? ● Licensing. W hat type of licensing requirements will the policy include to facilitate reuse? What are the goals of the researcher, university, funder, and society and what licenses support these goals? What resources are available to the researcher? How can institutions support the researchers? What support is available to support researchers trying to ensure compliance with licenses of underlying software dependencies? ● Metadata. What documentation and descriptive details are needed to understand and execute the code or run the software program? How will the computational environment in which software or code was originally executed be described and archived? Is the documentation and accompanying material prepared in a manner such that any reasonably adept programmer and systems engineer could easily set up, compile and run it? ● Preservation. What constitutes an appropriate deposit location for the code or software? Is there a repository that is appropriate for the subject matter in question, and/or has emerged within a specific research community as the default resource in that field? Is the repository secure, stable, open and discoverable for all to access? ● Attribution. How will the creators of the software be credited for their work, and how will the code be referred to using identifiers? How will the provenance of non-code contributions, such as design or funding, be recorded? What mechanisms exist for persistent citation? How do identifiers and provenance work interoperate with other systems? ● Further contributions. How will the project build in processes or allocate funds to give back to open source tools which it uses, in order to make a more sustainable ecosystem as a whole? ● Integration. How will an open source programs office (OSPO) integrate with the university community? How does the OSPO support the creation of software inventories, metrics, assessment, etc.? How does the OSPO work with research administration including issues such as ethical use of software? ..."