Tools and practices for FAIR research software

 [EC1]Formerly ‘Introduction to Software for Open and Reproducible Research’.  

Content overview

This short (four half days) course teaches tools and practices for producing and sharing quality, sustainable and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) research software to support open and reproducible research.

 Participants will also be expected to complete Carpentries Instructor Training to help them develop the knowledge and skills to teach this course. A booking code will be provided to participants after registration.

Learning objectives

After attending this training, you will be able to:

  • List challenges typically faced by researchers developing software and managing data for modern computational research, including those commensurate with the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles
  • Understand and use some tools and practices that can help make your research, data and software FAIR
  • Automate your research and enable replication of your research results by writing software to implement the research methodology and assess if the code does what it intends to do via code testing
  • Share and version control your research software using Git and GitHub
  • Use best practices for developing FAIR research software – including writing readable code, code documentation, licencing and citation
  • Use tools and techniques for collaborative and sustainable open software development and maintenance
  • Understand some ethical issues around research software development and usage and how our work impacts others
  • Build on top of your existing knowledge of Python, Git and command line tools and enhance your research software development workflow with some good practices around structuring, sharing and reusing code to make it more FAIR

Completion criteria

Participants are expected to:

  • Attend each of the 4 half-day training sessions delivered by SSI in full and participate in the exercises.
  • Register for and complete Carpentries Instructor Training (unless already completed).
  • Create and discuss a plan to deliver training for at least 10 participants at their institutions following the training

Audience

  • Post-graduate students or early career researchers who are starting their research projects, have foundational knowledge of Python, version control and using software tools from command line shell, and want to develop software to support their research using established best practices.
  • Researchers or scientists who had foundational software training before but wish to refresh, reinforce or improve their skills and practices in the wider context of FAIR research and sharing and writing software for open and reproducible research.

Level (Introduction, intermediate, advanced)

Introductory

Prerequisite skills, expertise and experience

Before joining this training, participants must have foundational knowledge of Python used to write scientific code, version control system Git and a command line (shell) tool to be able to understand code examples used in the course. Attending a Software Carpentry or a similar course could help with these requirements and gaining necessary prerequisite skills.

 Please also make sure you have all the required software installed before attending this course.

Overall likely time commitment

  • 1 hour pre-workshop setup session (optional)
  • 4 × 3.5 training hours (required)
  • 6 to 8 hours creating and presenting deliverables

 In addition to the time commitment for this course participants are also expected to complete Carpentries Instructor Training (unless already completed):

  • Attend a Carpentries Instructor Training event (two full days or four half days)
  •  Complete the Instructor Checkout process (2-3 hours) within 3 months of the Carpentries Instructor Training event

Event date and time

Pre-workshop software setup session: Monday 31 March 2025 (optional, time TBC):

 SSI training: Tuesday 1 to Friday 4 April 2025, 9:30 – 13:00.

 For Carpentries Instructor Training participants will be issued with a code to allow them to register for any of the public events listed in the Carpentries Instructor Training calendar.

Registration deadline

14th January 2025

Training partner

Software Sustainability Institute

Location

Online

Cost to institution per participant

£200 (inclusive of charge to attend Carpentries Instructor Training)

Number of attendees

20

Application

For information about how to apply, please contact your institution’s Open Research Coordinator and Administrator (linked via this page).

For specific course content queries: steven.boneham@newcastle.ac.uk

For general information regarding the UKRN ORP training: elle.chilton-knight@bristol.ac.uk

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