From f442579e0eadde83b83c548c509db4c352d71590 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Harald von Waldow Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2024 10:35:39 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] rewrote \skillsection{SRU} (#254) * rewrote \skillsection{SRU} --------- Co-authored-by: CaptainSifff Co-authored-by: Gerasimos Chourdakis --- competencies.md | 25 ++++++++++++++++++------- 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) diff --git a/competencies.md b/competencies.md index 38274b30..43c02116 100644 --- a/competencies.md +++ b/competencies.md @@ -530,13 +530,24 @@ good research, including publications, reviews and reproducibility. \skillsection{SRU} -One goal of \ac{FAIR} software is to avoid unnecessary duplication of work by reusing -existing work instead. To (re-) use software, researchers have to be able to -find it and then easily evaluate if the software actually suits their needs. -Apart from functionality, the integration with other software, -expected sustainability, and extensibility also have to be part of this evaluation. -Additional software citation and metadata skills are necessary to provide evidence -of software re-use in the scientific record. +The re-use of existing assets such as libraries and pieces of code +to improve efficiency and quality +belongs to the fundamentals of software construction [@swebok_2014]. +To discover software, RSEs rely on domain-specific knowledge and +domain repositories, as well as research skills, discovering related +software via software citations and metadata. +To evaluate whether the artifacts to be re-used suit their needs, +RSEs often need to consider the scientific context of their origin. +For example, a paper that references the code under consideration +might be crucial to validate its fitness for purpose or to discredit it. +Code that incorporates research-domain specific knowledge +needs to be understood at a very detailed level +and its re-use documented to meet standards of good research practice. +Not only the technical compatibility needs to be understood and documented +(programming languages, system interoperability), but also the underlying +models and computational methods need to fit the purpose; this question +often requires wider research skills and deeper understanding of the +research domain at hand. \skillsection{SP}