DOI: 10.3897/rio.11.e179253

Authors: Ronny Gey, Daniel Mietchen, Oliver Karras, Tim Wittenborg, Moritz Schubotz, Jan Bumberger

Abstract: Across essentially all fields of research, many aspects of the respective research processes – whether experimental, theoretical, empirical or outright computational – are closely related to software. Yet the process of finding software that is directly suitable or at least a good starting point for a given research task is cumbersome.This project aims to develop a community-driven system that provides potential users of research software with a diversity of pathways towards actually finding software that closely matches their research needs if such software exists. Conversely, it will provide software developers with mechanisms to make their software findable for research-related tasks and it will highlight mismatches between software supply and demand for specific tasks.To this end, we will document how various stakeholders of the research landscape have been searching for – or stumbling upon – research software so far, identify variables associated with successful search outcomes and build workflows that assist in describing software and associated concepts in a standardised fashion. These descriptions will then be aligned across various sources of relevant information and integrated into Wikidata, the knowledge graph that anyone can edit and that already contains considerable breadth and depth of information related to research, software and their interactions.While keeping an eye on similar approaches to software discovery that might work in parts of the research ecosystem, existing Wikidata content and workflows will be reviewed and built upon. Additional documentation, tooling and workflows will be developed to enrich, expand, curate, query and explore this content, both for specific use cases and with ongoing engagement of the communities involved in research software, open data or collaborative curation. Within its three years, the project seeks to establish a dedicated community overseeing a well-documented and smoothly running infrastructure for software discovery and to devise a plan for how this can be sustained for the longer term.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.11.e155393

Authors: Elizabeth Adams, Natalie Raia, Saebyul Choe, Isaac Wink, Doug Curl

Abstract: State geological surveys create and steward valuable long-term earth and environmental science datasets and often serve as physical archives for material samples. Often funded directly through state legislatures, these agencies face varying degrees of support, nuanced regulations and public-serving missions that direct their research and day-to-day operations. Scientists at state geological surveys produce a range of outputs: datasets that may be stored internally, through an institutional repository or disseminated to broader community repositories and publications that may include both grey and peer-reviewed literature. This paper discusses a workshop held at the Kentucky Geological Survey to introduce researchers to data management, sharing and stewardship practices and to better understand obstacles to implementing such practices.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.4.e32449

Authors: Katja Seltmann, Sara Lafia, Deborah Paul, Shelley James, David Bloom, Nelson Rios, Shari Ellis, Una Farrell, Jessica Utrup, Michael Yost, Edward Davis, Rob Emery, Gary Motz, Julien Kimmig, Vaughn Shirey, Emily Sandall, Daniel Park, Christopher Tyrrell, R. Sean Thackurdeen, Matthew Collins, Vincent O'Leary, Heather Prestridge, Christopher Evelyn, Ben Nyberg

Abstract: Georeferencing is the process of aligning a text description of a geographic location with a spatial location based on a geographic coordinate system. Training aids are commonly created around the georeferencing process to disseminate community standards and ideas, guide accurate georeferencing, inform users about new tools, and help users evaluate existing geospatial data. The Georeferencing for Research Use (GRU) workshop was implemented as a training aid that focused on the creation and research use of geospatial coordinates, and included both data researchers and data providers, to facilitate communication between the groups. The workshop included 23 participants with a wide background of expertise ranging from students (undergraduate and graduate), professors, researchers and educators, scientific data managers, natural history collections personnel, and spatial analyst specialists. The conversations and survey results from this workshop demonstrate that it is important to provide opportunities for biocollections data providers to interact directly with the researchers using the data they produce and vice versa.

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