Meron Vermaas
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Fellowship project title: Monitoring and Improving Open Research Software at the VU
The goal: This project aims to use technology to evaluate how FAIR code repositories created by researchers at the VU are. After determining this, we will contact the researchers to guide them through the necessary steps to improve the sustainability of their research software. We will do this by developing open-source code to find their repositories and scan how FAIR the code is. Knowledge-sharing sessions will be organized to help the researchers improve their software.
The why: Good software practices are not generally known and/or practiced. Furthermore, currently there are no central policies, guidelines and support to effectuate good research software practices at the VU. In our current databases, no overview of the research software developed within the university is available (i.e., our Current Research Information System PURE does not have metadata on software). To improve research software quality, it is essential to be able to find and monitor the software.
