Hi Robert, you wrote:
>I was thinking of putting out a survey of our researchers to gather evidence of need and appetite, but would want to make sure I ask the right questions (I'm no programmer myself), e.g. which disciplines have most need, where discipline-specific knowledge/skills are requisite, what >programming languages are in most use/most need support, how a group could be useful, etc. Has anybody else undertaken a survey along these lines? I'd be very interested if anyone has materials they would be willing to share.
I worked on a project with the UK Data Service that looked at code sharing practices among Wellcome & ESRC funded researchers. We found that 40% of the surveyed researchers produced code, but less than half of these shared the resources. Code sharing was more common in the sciences, particularly in the area of genetic & molecular research. However, there was a general view that code development required greater recognition as a research activity and more emphasis should be placed on code as a distinct research output. The final report was published on Figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4055448.v1, with the questionnaire and resulting data made available through the UKDS https://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-852494.
We haven't had any code-focused workshops at LSHTM yet, though I have been encouraging researchers to publish their code and processing scripts in the data repository, or at least tell me where they're hosted. I've recorded details of several research software outputs in our repository, though I do wonder if there's a better approach to cataloguing these resources. Does anyone else record details on code outputs in their institutional repository? Have you adopted specific metadata for these resources? It would be useful to compare notes and decide if we need to develop guidelines for describing these resources at an institutional level in a more consistent manner.
Regards,
Gareth
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Gareth Knight
Research Data Manager,
Library & Archives Service
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Keppel Street
London WC1E 7HT
(+44) 020 7927 2564
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http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/researchdataman/
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