The challenges and enablers of tracking software contributions as a research output.

1. Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
Tracking Software
Contributions
doi: 10.6084/m9.figshare.705892
Joint ORCID – DRYAD Symposium on Research Attribution
23 May 2013, Oxford
Neil Chue Hong (@npch), Software Sustainability Institute
ORCID: 0000-0002-8876-7606 | N.ChueHong@software.ac.uk
Unless otherwise indicated
slides licensed under

2. Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
Authorship Lifecycle
Identif
yCite
Reuse
Research
Index
Papers, data, software all
research outputs of
a continuous cycle.
With software, technology
makes it easier to track,
but not reward.
We cannot separate
papers, data and software
when we release research.
http://openresearchsoftware.metajnl.com

3. Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
Versioning
Personal
v1
Personal
v2
Personal
v3
Personal
v2a
Public
v1
Personal
v3a
Personal
v2a
Public
v2
Public
v3
Why do we version?
- To indicate a change
-To allow sharing
- To confer special status
Version control systems
make this easy and concept
of a person and an output
are there but not unique

4. Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
Algorithm
Function
Program
Library/Suite/Package
…
Granularity
What do we define?
- Useful units of
reuse

5. Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
What do we choose to identify:
- Workflow?
- Software that runs workflow?
- Software referenced by workflow?
-Software dependencies?
What’s the minimum citable part?
Boundary

6. Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
AuthorshipAuthorship• Which authors have had what impact on each version of the software?
• Who had the largest contribution to the scientific results in a paper?
• Can micro-attribution work? Can track author, but not contribution?
http://beyond-impact.org/?p=175
OGSA-DAI projects statistics
from Ohloh
Why do weidentify?
- To measure
-Torestrict
- To communicate
- To include

7. Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
5 Stars of Research Software
• Community
 There is a community infrastructure
• Open
 Software has permissive license
• Defined
 Accurate metadata for the software
• Extensible
 Usable, modifiable for my purpose
• Runnable
 I can access and run software
C
O
DE
R
c.f.
5 Stars of Linked Data
(Berners-Lee)
5 Stars of Online Journals
(Shotton)
“Golden Star”
Originally by Ssolbergj
CC-BY

8. Software Sustainability Institute
www.software.ac.uk
Journal of Open
Research Software
http://openresearchsoftware.metajnl.com