From 82665a5813ce084a99dc0c5eb20f9430e9d31573 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?UTF-8?q?Philipp=20Matthias=20Sch=C3=A4fer?= Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2024 09:29:43 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 01/11] A few reformulations for section 5 already adapted based on discussion in the group of authors. --- bibliography.bib | 22 ++++++++++++++++++++++ paper.tex | 44 +++++++++++++++++++++++--------------------- 2 files changed, 45 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-) diff --git a/bibliography.bib b/bibliography.bib index 8b126a3..da7cd65 100644 --- a/bibliography.bib +++ b/bibliography.bib @@ -5743,3 +5743,25 @@ @article{wright_ambivalent_internal_consultant_2009 pages = {309--322}, doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8551.2008.00585.x}, } + +@Article{goth_foundational_competencies_2024, + author = {Goth, Florian and Alves, Renato and Braun, Matthias and + Castro, Leyla Jael and Chourdakis, Gerasimos and Christ, Simon + and Cohen, Jeremy and Druskat, Stephan and Erxleben, Fredo and + Grad, Jean-Noël and Hagdorn, Magnus and Hodges, Toby and + Juckeland, Guido and Kempf, Dominic and Lamprecht, Anna-Lena + and Linxweiler, Jan and Löffler, Frank and Martone, Michele + and Schwarzmeier, Moritz and Seibold, Heidi and Thiele, Jan + Philipp and von Waldow, Harald and Wittke, Samantha}, + title = {Foundational Competencies and Responsibilities of a Research + Software Engineer}, + journal = {F1000Research}, + year = 2024, + volume = 13, + month = nov, + pages = 1429, + issn = {2046-1402}, + doi = {10.12688/f1000research.157778.1}, + url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.157778.1}, + publisher = {F1000 Research Ltd} +} diff --git a/paper.tex b/paper.tex index 6f3044a..1eb52af 100644 --- a/paper.tex +++ b/paper.tex @@ -494,9 +494,9 @@ \section{Existing Implementations} \section{Realization Strategy}% \label{sec:realization} -We propose a realization strategy for a central institutional RSE unit. +We propose building blocks for individual realization strategies for central institutional RSE units. We start by listing different possibilities for funding RSE positions at a research institution. -Following that, we describe a potential transition pathway, starting from existing structures that have grown in research alliances such as collaborative research centers or also in research departments of an institution. +Following that, we describe a potential transition pathway, starting from existing structures that have grown in research alliances such as Collaborative Research Centers or also in research departments of an institution. This is complemented by discussing the opportunity of outsourcing RSE services and the challenging task of identifying and hiring suitable RSE candidates. \subsection{Funding Possibilities}% @@ -515,7 +515,7 @@ \subsection{Funding Possibilities}% At research institutions, it is important to resolve the conflict between time-limited research funding and the need for permanent positions in order to be competitive with industry. Experience is also an essential component of software engineering, which makes long-term employment indispensable. In principle, pooling of positions and funds makes it possible to finance permanent positions from changing and mixed sources. -Nevertheless, convincing the institution to take the corresponding risk of failing to raise external funds may be a very challenging task. +An institution’s leadership has to justify to take the corresponding risk of failing to raise external funds may be a very challenging task. \begin{enumerate} \item It seems natural to allocate ordinary budget positions for RSEs. However, particularly at German universities, it is usually impossible to create completely new budget positions and the only feasible way is to rededicate an existing position after its corresponding holder has left. @@ -558,7 +558,7 @@ \subsection{Transition Pathway} \subsubsection{Initial Measures} The following measures initialize the two modules presented in \autoref{sec:network} and \autoref{sec:teaching}. -While dedicated funding certainly is beneficial already for this initialization, it is not mandatory. +While dedicated funding certainly is beneficial already for step, it is not necessary. Once the two measures are in place, they can be used to illustrate the need for institutional RSE activities and therefore support funding proposals. \paragraph{Network of RSEs} @@ -566,7 +566,7 @@ \subsubsection{Initial Measures} An institutional dedicated mailing list, chat group and possibly other communication platforms can be created and a request for participation can be circulated via institutional channels such as an employee newsletter. First common events such as social gatherings or RSE-related seminar talks can be organized and announced via the communication platform. This process can be accompanied, facilitated and strengthened by founding a local de-RSE chapter. -Such network-building has been successfully initiated and implemented at several German research institutions. +Such network-building has been successfully initiated and implemented at several German research institutions, for example at the German Aerospace Center and the Forchungszentrum Jülich. \paragraph{Pooling of existing teaching materials and training offers} Depending on local RSE efforts, teaching materials and associated training formats are likely to already exist, @@ -576,21 +576,21 @@ \subsubsection{Initial Measures} or CodeRefinery\footnote{Examples \url{https://coderefinery.org/lessons/}}. \subsubsection{Conceptualization} -Decision makers at an institution usually require a concept upon which they will decide about the installation of an RSE unit. -Such a concept should specify the idea of the RSE unit, its responsibilities and offerings as a subset of the nine modules presented in \autoref{sec:vision}, and the resulting benefits for the institution and its researchers. +Decision processes at institutions usually require a concept on which to base the decision on whether to install an RSE unit. +Such a concept should specify the idea of the RSE unit, its responsibilities and offerings as a subset of the nine modules presented in \autoref{sec:vision}, the funding, and the resulting benefits for the institution and its researchers. A rather difficult and crucial question can be the localization of the RSE unit within the organisational structure of the institution. A canonical place would be a new subunit of an institutional body close to software, -training services and computing such as the institution's IT department, the computing center or the library. +training services and computing such as the institution's IT department, the computing center, or the library. Since most institutions already have an RDM unit, it seems natural to add the RSE unit as a parallel structure. Another choice for the superordinate body, particularly at universities, is the faculty for computer science. -Determining the best place may involve discussing with several stakeholders at the institution and can already be beneficial for creating a +Determining the best place may involve discussions with several stakeholders at the institution and can already be beneficial for creating a network of institutional partners, the module described in \autoref{sec:partners}. The concept should also address funding for the RSE unit's initial staff. We consider it necessary that there is a certain amount of base funding provided by the institution that covers a basic RSE unit because much RSE work is not project based. -While possibilities can be drawn from the discussion above, specific ideas should be discussed beforehand with the decision makers. -For facilitating the expansion of the RSE unit in the longer term, the installment of an institutional policy for requesting person-months in externally funded projects dedicated to RSE should be proposed. +While options can be drawn from the discussion above, specific ideas should be discussed beforehand with the decision makers. +For facilitating the expansion of the RSE unit in the long term, the installment of an institutional policy for requesting person-months in externally funded projects dedicated to RSE should be proposed. Another part of the concept should be the governance structure of the RSE unit. One of the decisions to be made is if the unit head is supposed to be part of the unit itself or if the unit will be headed by a person outside of it. @@ -606,7 +606,7 @@ \subsubsection{Installation of the Department} These central positions will be complemented by the existing RSEs organized in the network to form a pool of institutional RSEs associated with the central unit. Drawing from the concept and considering the actual initial staff situation, a first task of the centrally funded structure is to define a basic service portfolio according to the modules described in \autoref{sec:vision}. -In addition to the already mentioned networking and teaching cf.~\autoref{sec:network} and \autoref{sec:teaching}, it seems natural to start with consultation cf.~\autoref{sec:consultation}, +In addition to the already mentioned networking and teaching, cf.~\autoref{sec:network} and \autoref{sec:teaching}, it seems natural to start with consultation, cf.~\autoref{sec:consultation}, as this allows to evaluate the potential necessities for other services such as development, infrastructure provisioning and maintenance. An extension of the initial service portfolio for a larger target audience requires the acquisition of further funding and installation of further positions, see below. @@ -618,7 +618,7 @@ \subsubsection{Growth of the Department} Over time, more and more researchers and proposals are expected to follow the institutional policy such that a consistent stream of income can be generated. \paragraph{Offering of additional services} -With the additional acquired funds, the service portfolio of the RSE unit can be enhanced regarding the modules described in \autoref{sec:vision}. +With the additionally acquired funds, the service portfolio of the RSE unit can be enhanced regarding the modules described in \autoref{sec:vision}. Obviously, the selection of modules and their share in the overall portfolio depend on the services that have been applied for in the corresponding proposals. As this is strongly connected to hiring persons with the required expertise, this has to be carefully planned, see also below. @@ -628,32 +628,34 @@ \subsection{Outsourcing} Another possibility for the realization of local RSE Service providers is by forming a spin-off and pooling the RSE Skills into an external company, which has benefits but also drawbacks. [\#SuccessStory Outsourcing] Among the most obvious benefits is that this enables the creation of contracts outside of the WissZeitVG.\@ This also widens the customer base of the RSE unit since the newly founded company may obtain contracts from industry. -If this company is university backed/branded this enables another possibility for a university to interact with the local society. +If this company is backed/branded by the institution this enables another possibility for an institution to interact with the local society. But there are drawbacks. -Since the company is now a university external entity the Vergabe-Richtlinien have to be fulfilled, which could \eg{} mean to publicly invite tenders in order to have a competitive procedure. +Since the company is now an entity external to the institution the Vergabe-Richtlinien have to be fulfilled, which could \eg{} mean to publicly invite tenders in order to have a competitive procedure. This also points to the fact that an external company has to be a mostly profitable entity (partly this can be softened by founding a non-for-profit entity). Moreover, during the outsourcing contract, there has to be a coordinator at both sides and the flow of information from the academic institution to the contracted company has to be established. These are some examples of additional administrative overhead due to the interaction with external partners. Certain domains will have issues with ensuring data privacy when working with this external company. -If forming a public company, it is hoped that parts of these issues can be legally alleviated by forming respective framework agreements between a university and the company. +Some of these issues might be legally alleviated by forming framework agreements between an institution and the company. It is of particular importance to agree on requirements and handover criteria, including quality assurance and license specifications. On top of these drawbacks, there are soft factors, like whether an external company is accepted by scientists. \subsection{Staff Acquisition/People} -This leaves us with the question of, assuming we have centralized RSE units, where do we get the employees? -Being an RSE should be a career worth aspiring to as any other profession and hence we have to additionally create education structures that generate a pool of people where central RSE units can be populated from. -This is a topic that will be considered in a separate paper. +RSE units need to be staffed, but where do potential employees come from? +Educational structures that generate a pool of people from which central RSE units can be populated from need to be set up. +In addition, being an RSE should be a career worth aspiring to, just as any other profession, with a long term perspective. +This is a topic that covered by a separate paper \autocite{goth_foundational_competencies_2024}, but we provide a brief summery here: + These RSEs will bring a diverse set of skills centered around the topics of research, digital tools, and team-based work and hence can easily offer the consulting services mentioned in the previous section and guide people to their implementation in their workgroups. To fill gaps, the RSE unit can also maintain a roster of freelance workers. In order to retain RSEs it should be possible for them to become experts in a field and hence this should make this job more attractive to young RSEs, in order to mitigate the problem that some will only see this job as a one-year stint after their PhD and then move on to something else. -To facilitate the retention of skilled people, industry has long identified education as an effective tool. +To facilitate the retention of skilled people, industry has long identified education as an effective tool.\todo{PMS: We discussed this, but I do not know how to resolve it.} For RSEs this should be helped by to be formed academic facilities that enable them to keep on learning skills after their first professional qualification, supported by the respective certification programs. In the longer run, Research Software Engineering should be integrated into the existing study programmes. One option here would be the creation of an RSE master as a specialization for a computer science bachelor. -This should be complemented by adding a minor in application-domain study programs such as biology, physics, engineering etc.\ to facilitate the communication between the corresponding two groups of RSEs. +This should be complemented by adding a minor in application-domain study programs such as biology, music, engineering etc.\ to facilitate the communication between the corresponding two groups of RSEs. There are already some master's programs available, (\eg{} in Berlin, Munich and Stuttgart) that develop this specialization on top of a domain bachelor. And of course there are data science curricula in the process of being created. A curated and continuously updated list of these programs is available at~\cite{learnandteachlearn}. From b9fdc556004fcf1aa104f75cc494b9aae70f7aab Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bernd Flemisch Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2024 08:58:06 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 02/11] review the PR and add changes according to the last meeting --- paper.tex | 24 ++++++++++++------------ 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-) diff --git a/paper.tex b/paper.tex index 1eb52af..55100c1 100644 --- a/paper.tex +++ b/paper.tex @@ -496,7 +496,7 @@ \section{Realization Strategy}% We propose building blocks for individual realization strategies for central institutional RSE units. We start by listing different possibilities for funding RSE positions at a research institution. -Following that, we describe a potential transition pathway, starting from existing structures that have grown in research alliances such as Collaborative Research Centers or also in research departments of an institution. +Following that, we describe a potential transition pathway, starting from existing structures that have grown in research alliances such as DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centres or also in research departments of an institution. This is complemented by discussing the opportunity of outsourcing RSE services and the challenging task of identifying and hiring suitable RSE candidates. \subsection{Funding Possibilities}% @@ -515,7 +515,7 @@ \subsection{Funding Possibilities}% At research institutions, it is important to resolve the conflict between time-limited research funding and the need for permanent positions in order to be competitive with industry. Experience is also an essential component of software engineering, which makes long-term employment indispensable. In principle, pooling of positions and funds makes it possible to finance permanent positions from changing and mixed sources. -An institution’s leadership has to justify to take the corresponding risk of failing to raise external funds may be a very challenging task. +An institution’s leadership has to justify taking the corresponding risk of failing to raise external funds. \begin{enumerate} \item It seems natural to allocate ordinary budget positions for RSEs. However, particularly at German universities, it is usually impossible to create completely new budget positions and the only feasible way is to rededicate an existing position after its corresponding holder has left. @@ -558,7 +558,7 @@ \subsection{Transition Pathway} \subsubsection{Initial Measures} The following measures initialize the two modules presented in \autoref{sec:network} and \autoref{sec:teaching}. -While dedicated funding certainly is beneficial already for step, it is not necessary. +While dedicated funding certainly is beneficial already for this step, it is not strictly necessary. Once the two measures are in place, they can be used to illustrate the need for institutional RSE activities and therefore support funding proposals. \paragraph{Network of RSEs} @@ -566,7 +566,7 @@ \subsubsection{Initial Measures} An institutional dedicated mailing list, chat group and possibly other communication platforms can be created and a request for participation can be circulated via institutional channels such as an employee newsletter. First common events such as social gatherings or RSE-related seminar talks can be organized and announced via the communication platform. This process can be accompanied, facilitated and strengthened by founding a local de-RSE chapter. -Such network-building has been successfully initiated and implemented at several German research institutions, for example at the German Aerospace Center and the Forchungszentrum Jülich. +Such network-building has been successfully initiated and implemented at several German research institutions such as the German Aerospace Center and the Forchungszentrum Jülich. \paragraph{Pooling of existing teaching materials and training offers} Depending on local RSE efforts, teaching materials and associated training formats are likely to already exist, @@ -628,9 +628,9 @@ \subsection{Outsourcing} Another possibility for the realization of local RSE Service providers is by forming a spin-off and pooling the RSE Skills into an external company, which has benefits but also drawbacks. [\#SuccessStory Outsourcing] Among the most obvious benefits is that this enables the creation of contracts outside of the WissZeitVG.\@ This also widens the customer base of the RSE unit since the newly founded company may obtain contracts from industry. -If this company is backed/branded by the institution this enables another possibility for an institution to interact with the local society. +If this company is backed/branded by the institution, this enables another possibility for an institution to interact with the local society. But there are drawbacks. -Since the company is now an entity external to the institution the Vergabe-Richtlinien have to be fulfilled, which could \eg{} mean to publicly invite tenders in order to have a competitive procedure. +Since the company is now an entity external to the institution, the Vergabe-Richtlinien have to be fulfilled, which could \eg{} mean to publicly invite tenders in order to have a competitive procedure. This also points to the fact that an external company has to be a mostly profitable entity (partly this can be softened by founding a non-for-profit entity). Moreover, during the outsourcing contract, there has to be a coordinator at both sides and the flow of information from the academic institution to the contracted company has to be established. These are some examples of additional administrative overhead due to the interaction with external partners. @@ -644,20 +644,20 @@ \subsection{Staff Acquisition/People} RSE units need to be staffed, but where do potential employees come from? Educational structures that generate a pool of people from which central RSE units can be populated from need to be set up. In addition, being an RSE should be a career worth aspiring to, just as any other profession, with a long term perspective. -This is a topic that covered by a separate paper \autocite{goth_foundational_competencies_2024}, but we provide a brief summery here: +This is a topic covered by a separate paper \autocite{goth_foundational_competencies_2024}, but we provide a brief summary here: These RSEs will bring a diverse set of skills centered around the topics of research, digital tools, and team-based work and hence can easily offer the consulting services mentioned in the previous section and guide people to their implementation in their workgroups. To fill gaps, the RSE unit can also maintain a roster of freelance workers. In order to retain RSEs it should be possible for them to become experts in a field and hence this should make this job more attractive to young RSEs, in order to mitigate the problem that some will only see this job as a one-year stint after their PhD and then move on to something else. -To facilitate the retention of skilled people, industry has long identified education as an effective tool.\todo{PMS: We discussed this, but I do not know how to resolve it.} -For RSEs this should be helped by to be formed academic facilities that enable them to keep on learning skills after their first professional qualification, supported by the respective certification programs. +To facilitate the retention of skilled people, industry has long identified education as an effective tool. +For RSEs, this should be helped by to be formed academic facilities that enable them to keep on learning skills after their first professional qualification, supported by the respective certification programs. In the longer run, Research Software Engineering should be integrated into the existing study programmes. -One option here would be the creation of an RSE master as a specialization for a computer science bachelor. -This should be complemented by adding a minor in application-domain study programs such as biology, music, engineering etc.\ to facilitate the communication between the corresponding two groups of RSEs. +One option here would be the creation of an RSE master as a specialization for computer science and also application-domain bachelor programmes. +This should be complemented by adding a minor in these application-domain study programs such as biology, music, engineering etc.\ to facilitate the communication between the corresponding two groups of RSEs. There are already some master's programs available, (\eg{} in Berlin, Munich and Stuttgart) that develop this specialization on top of a domain bachelor. -And of course there are data science curricula in the process of being created. +Moreover, there are data science curricula in the process of being created. A curated and continuously updated list of these programs is available at~\cite{learnandteachlearn}. % on the topic of acquiring and retaining staff, there's \autocite{VanTuyl2023} from US-RSE discussing career pathways, and \autocite{wright_ambivalent_internal_consultant_2009} about internal consultants and their struggle coming to terms with their work identity (in the management field) From ad5558a49411084dead9746adb49b516cac8d476 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?UTF-8?q?Philipp=20Matthias=20Sch=C3=A4fer?= Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2024 10:22:34 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 03/11] Reformualte sentence as suggested by Magnus Hagdorn Co-authored-by: Magnus Hagdorn --- paper.tex | 3 ++- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/paper.tex b/paper.tex index c981fcf..6169a6e 100644 --- a/paper.tex +++ b/paper.tex @@ -642,7 +642,8 @@ \subsection{Outsourcing} \subsection{Staff Acquisition/People} RSE units need to be staffed, but where do potential employees come from? -Educational structures that generate a pool of people from which central RSE units can be populated from need to be set up. +So far, researchers accidentally find themselves in the role of an RSE because they pursued software development as part of their research. +A more deliberate approach with specific RSE education can train people in sufficient numbers for central RSE units. In addition, being an RSE should be a career worth aspiring to, just as any other profession, with a long term perspective. This is a topic covered by a separate paper \autocite{goth_foundational_competencies_2024}, but we provide a brief summary here: From 4136f836a9eca1bdcd6d2464c8782940606f4a1e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?UTF-8?q?Philipp=20Matthias=20Sch=C3=A4fer?= Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2024 10:28:49 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 04/11] Reformulate sentence --- paper.tex | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/paper.tex b/paper.tex index 6169a6e..16ad194 100644 --- a/paper.tex +++ b/paper.tex @@ -643,8 +643,8 @@ \subsection{Staff Acquisition/People} RSE units need to be staffed, but where do potential employees come from? So far, researchers accidentally find themselves in the role of an RSE because they pursued software development as part of their research. -A more deliberate approach with specific RSE education can train people in sufficient numbers for central RSE units. -In addition, being an RSE should be a career worth aspiring to, just as any other profession, with a long term perspective. +A more deliberate approach with specific RSE education may be necessary to train people in sufficient numbers for central RSE units. +Being an RSE should be a career worth aspiring to, just as any other profession, with a long term perspective. This is a topic covered by a separate paper \autocite{goth_foundational_competencies_2024}, but we provide a brief summary here: These RSEs will bring a diverse set of skills centred around the topics of research, From 187bb7cfb08ad0b6a303083dc8c40cf2b7c61342 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Magnus Hagdorn Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2025 13:12:33 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 05/11] drop sentence --- paper.tex | 1 - 1 file changed, 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/paper.tex b/paper.tex index ffb03bf..5586d96 100644 --- a/paper.tex +++ b/paper.tex @@ -112,7 +112,6 @@ \subsection{Pooling: a necessary ingredient} They are assumed to be able to suggest the most appropriate tools/frameworks and design or architecture patterns for certain research challenges. Their diversity in skills (languages, frameworks, front/back-end, UX, management) is welcomed, especially for short-term needs in projects. This will improve the chances of a project being successfully completed in a timely manner. -This will save money otherwise spent in duplication of efforts \todo{magi: not sure what effort is duplicated here, learning new stuff?}. That means a central RSE unit has more RSE competencies than any individual research group in the institution. This allows members of that unit to bring in new ideas or transfer them from other collaborations to these groups. From 0c20dd1d8b71ba1c6ea5430891a49575e5d94f89 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Magnus Hagdorn Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2025 13:15:51 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 06/11] reformulate --- paper.tex | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/paper.tex b/paper.tex index 5586d96..7fcdede 100644 --- a/paper.tex +++ b/paper.tex @@ -317,7 +317,7 @@ \subsection{Module 3: Development Services}% There is a huge demand for the development and customisation of research software tailored to the needs of specific research projects. In many cases this can be achieved by educating researchers to write their own software according to RSE best practices. -However, there are also many instances where the knowledge gap between the researchers and the intended research software development is too large to bridge efficiently \todo{magi: maybe more positively expressed, some projects are too complex to be handled by a researcher}. +Bringing in expert RSEs to deal with the development of complex research software frees up the researchers to focus on research. In these cases, RSE development services are a great opportunity that can have a huge impact on the digitisation of science at a research institution. Similar to consultation services, this service can be offered at multiple scales. From b10e925e68bbc8dee2d31a11705f67b59aed0358 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Magnus Hagdorn Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2025 13:18:11 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 07/11] insert long-term contracts --- paper.tex | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/paper.tex b/paper.tex index 7fcdede..3d1cc67 100644 --- a/paper.tex +++ b/paper.tex @@ -332,7 +332,7 @@ \subsection{Module 3: Development Services}% If the research within an institution heavily relies on specific pieces of software, it is of vital importance for the long term success of the institution to sustain these pieces of software. Relying on a workforce that is subject to academic labour turnover poses a risk of knowledge loss. -If the development is done in an RSE unit, institutional memory about critical research software infrastructures can be created and the long term availability of these infrastructures can be improved \todo{magi: but only if there are long term contracts in the RSE unit}. +If the development is done in an RSE unit with long-term contracts, institutional memory about critical research software infrastructures can be created and the long term availability of these infrastructures can be improved. This applies both to domain-specific research software (\eg{} simulation frameworks widely used throughout the institution) and to domain-agnostic software and data infrastructure (\eg{} Jupyter, workflow management systems, data repository software). From 3be93de1d2c8a9ebb9febd75881139100241ff08 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Magnus Hagdorn Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2025 13:18:52 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 08/11] drop sentence --- paper.tex | 1 - 1 file changed, 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/paper.tex b/paper.tex index 3d1cc67..2d77ce1 100644 --- a/paper.tex +++ b/paper.tex @@ -366,7 +366,6 @@ \subsection{Module 4: Teaching Services}% A central RSE unit can provide or organise training for researchers and RSEs in spokes. This can replace self-education for foundational software development skills and provide a basis from which researchers can continue to learn more specialised skills guided by experts of the central RSE unit. -It also improves the quality of much of the fairly simple software being written by researchers; scripts to process and maybe visualise their data\todo{magi: isn't that the whole point of teaching to get better at something no matter whether simple or not. I think we can drop this sentence}. Since teaching material for foundational software development skills is freely available, the tasks remaining for a central RSE unit are to adapt the material to local requirements as well as to organise and hold courses and workshops. From 78156e292ce09543f3eab7b6f76662180d7707fd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Magnus Hagdorn Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2025 13:23:03 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 09/11] replace RSE infrastructure --- paper.tex | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/paper.tex b/paper.tex index 2d77ce1..f411c90 100644 --- a/paper.tex +++ b/paper.tex @@ -415,7 +415,7 @@ \subsection{Module 6: RSE Infrastructure Provisioning}% IT and (potentially high-performance) computing infrastructure provisioning is usually the purview of an institution's IT department and/or a computing centre\todo{magi: what's the difference between IT department and computing centre, I would contract}. However, a central RSE unit can provide extra services by acting as an intermediary for RSE infrastructure and by hosting pilot instances of new tools and services. -IT departments typically only provide the service for hosting and accessing IT infrastructures, such as RSE infrastructures\todo{magi: what is RSE infrastructure? database, web services, compute clouds?}. +IT departments typically provide the service for hosting and accessing IT infrastructures, including services that fascilitate the work of RSEs. Central RSE units are a link between the central services offered either by IT departments, computing centres or over-archingly available services on one side, and RSEs in spokes on the other, offering documentation, training and best-practices to efficiently and effectively use available services and comply with established processes. From 7798c4173072b71133c4604c74c6bb97b6f8066d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Magnus Hagdorn Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2025 13:24:34 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 10/11] drop half sentence --- paper.tex | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/paper.tex b/paper.tex index f411c90..19935e6 100644 --- a/paper.tex +++ b/paper.tex @@ -369,7 +369,7 @@ \subsection{Module 4: Teaching Services}% Since teaching material for foundational software development skills is freely available, the tasks remaining for a central RSE unit are to adapt the material to local requirements as well as to organise and hold courses and workshops. -For more complex software development projects, a central RSE unit can offer individual training, either through consultation or by lending out RSEs into projects of research departments\todo{magi: I would drop the sentence after the comma, that's more like module 2}. +For more complex software development projects, a central RSE unit can offer individual training. In both cases the expert RSEs from the central RSE unit can pass on their knowledge precisely adapted to the concrete needs of those that they support.\todo{magi: what about teaching on regular courses?} \subsection{Module 5: Create a Network of Institutional Partners}% From d1f0f4142239138acf873dab153a376872581ea4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Magnus Hagdorn Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2025 13:27:48 +0100 Subject: [PATCH 11/11] spell check --- paper.tex | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/paper.tex b/paper.tex index 19935e6..20a61a9 100644 --- a/paper.tex +++ b/paper.tex @@ -415,7 +415,7 @@ \subsection{Module 6: RSE Infrastructure Provisioning}% IT and (potentially high-performance) computing infrastructure provisioning is usually the purview of an institution's IT department and/or a computing centre\todo{magi: what's the difference between IT department and computing centre, I would contract}. However, a central RSE unit can provide extra services by acting as an intermediary for RSE infrastructure and by hosting pilot instances of new tools and services. -IT departments typically provide the service for hosting and accessing IT infrastructures, including services that fascilitate the work of RSEs. +IT departments typically provide the service for hosting and accessing IT infrastructures, including services that facilitate the work of RSEs. Central RSE units are a link between the central services offered either by IT departments, computing centres or over-archingly available services on one side, and RSEs in spokes on the other, offering documentation, training and best-practices to efficiently and effectively use available services and comply with established processes.