Talk presented at the Digital Practices in the Humanities Workshop about the Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship.

1. The fellowshipof the ring
Dr Alejandra Gonzalez-Beltran
Digital Practices in the Humanities Workshop (DPHW)
Oxford e-Research Centre, University of Oxford
21st June 2018
@alegonbel

2. About me
● SSI Fellow 2018
● Research Lecturer at the Oxford e-Research Centre, Engineering Science,
University of Oxford
● Self-identified as a Research Software Engineer, working on Data Science
● Work on developing data models, methods and software tools to help
researchers manage their research outputs (data, software, models, etc. and
their interrelations) aiming at enabling reproducibility and aggregation of
results
○ provide enough structured information about them so that they can be shared, discovered,
re-used, aggregated

3. The SSI fellowship programme
● Funding for researchers in exchange for their expertise and advice
● Goals:
○ Gather intelligence about research and software from all disciplines
○ Encourage fellows to develop their interests in software sustainability
○ Aid them as ambassadors of good software practice in their domains
○ Support capacity building and policy development initiatives
● Funds: £3000 to spend over 15 months
○ Flexible funding supporting activities beneficial for the fellow and the institute’s aim
■ Examples: travel to conferences, set up and run workshops, organise software
sustainability sessions at domain-specific conferences, host/organise/teach at training
events such as Software / Data / Library Carpentries
https://www.software.ac.uk/index.php/fellowship-programme

4. Who can be a fellow?
● Based on the UK or collaborating with a group based on the UK
● A researcher who uses software
● A developer who writes tools for researchers
● A research software engineer who supports the work of researchers with
software
● An advocate for best practice in software use for your research domain
● In a leadership role in projects or organisations that make heavy use of
software
● A user of research software
● Passionate about software in research in any way
https://www.software.ac.uk/index.php/fellowship-programme

5. Doubts?
The FAQ to the rescue…
https://www.software.ac.uk/fellowship-programme/faq
Or email the institute...
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6. Why you should apply?
● Join a Network of Fellows
○ 112 fellows from 2012 to 2018
○ Support for collaboration between fellows
○ Peer-support, community
○ “Once a fellow, always a fellow”
● Platform for encouraging software (and data) best practices
● Participate in the events
○ Inaugural meeting
○ Collaborations Workshop (CW) - super friendly and inspiring event
■ Brings together researchers, developers, innovators, managers, funders, publishers,
leaders and educators to explore best practices and the future of research software
○ Other events SSI supports
● Create new fellow’s stories
● You get a T-shirt! Info from Shoaib Sufi’s slide

7. What you should do as a fellow?
● Your own activities
○ Workshops, Conferences, Training
● Attend Institute events
○ Inaugural meeting
○ CW
● Help the Institute and the fellowship programme
○ Promote the Institute
○ Host workshops / CW
○ Review fellows / open call
○ Advisory Board
○ Advice
● Blog
○ Blog about activities you are supported to do
○ You can also blog about other activities or topics of interest
Info from Shoaib Sufi’s slide

8. Fellows’ thoughts about the experience
● Ethics-Approved Fellows Impact Study (2012-2016)
● Over 90% said fellowship benefitted them
● Over 70% said fellowship benefitted their careers
● Early indications:
○ Benefit to them: community, recognition, skills
○ Benefit to their institutes: improved practice, RSE role, interdisciplinarity
○ Benefit to their domain: tailored training and highlighting the importance of sustainable skills
Info from Shoaib Sufi’s slide
Sufi SA, Jay C. (2018) Raising the status of software in research: A survey-based
evaluation of the Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship Programme. PeerJ
Preprints 6:e26849v1https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26849v1

9. 2018 selection process (1/2)
● Call opened (end August 2017)
● Webinar (mid September 2017)
● Application (early October 2017)
○ Video: 6 minutes long voice over slide presentation
○ Who you are professionally, what you do, what you plan for the fellowship
○ Even if it seemed a daunting task, it was really fun to come up with ideas to make the video
interesting
● Shortlist announcement (end October 2017)
○ Videos of candidates shared - very creative and stimulating videos, great to meet people
virtually, learn about their work and plans and find common interests
https://www.software.ac.uk/index.php/fellowship-programme/2018/application-video-guide
https://www.software.ac.uk/index.php/fellowship-programme/2018/timetable

10. 2018 selection process (2/2)
● Online selection day (early November 2017)
○ All the shortlisted candidates + evaluation panel (SSI staff + previous fellows)
○ Really stimulating and intense day with lots of discussions
○ Open session of questions with the whole group
○ A couple of discussion sessions in smaller groups
■ List of topics to select from
■ Chair, scribe selection
● Offers of fellowships to successful candidates (late November 2017)
● Announcement of 2018 fellows (early December 2017)
● Inaugural meeting (early February 2018)

11. Some of my activities and plans
● Attended inaugural meeting and CW
● Attended the RSE for Data Science meeting at the Alan Turing Institute
○ Research Software Engineers and Data Scientists: More in Common
○ So you want to start a data science institute? Achieving Sustainability
● Future meetings: RSE 2018 conference
● Engagement with RSE community and Oxford RSE network
● Contributed to translation into Spanish of some The Carpentries’ lessons
● Continue participation in the Reproducible Research project at Oxford
● Activities to raise awareness of the importance of diversity in computing
● … and more!

12. Final thoughts
● Right people to effect change are within the domains
● Need for support and a community
● SSI Fellowship programme allowed to scale up to many domains
● Forum for cross-pollination of ideas
● The start of a continuous thread of work
Info from Shoaib Sufi’s slide

13. Thanks and Questions?
● Thanks
○ Software Sustainability
○ Shoaib Sufi
○ Pip Willcox and Giles Bergel