Nine Best Practices for Research Software Registries and Repositories: A Concise Guide
cs.DL
/ Authors
Task Force on Best Practices for Software Registries, :, Alain Monteil, Alejandra Gonzalez-Beltran, Alexandros Ioannidis, Alice Allen, Allen Lee, Anita Bandrowski, Bruce E. Wilson, Bryce Mecum
and 23 more authors
Cai Fan Du, Carly Robinson, Daniel Garijo, Daniel S. Katz, David Long, Genevieve Milliken, Hervé Ménager, Jessica Hausman, Jurriaan H. Spaaks, Katrina Fenlon, Kristin Vanderbilt, Lorraine Hwang, Lynn Davis, Martin Fenner, Michael R. Crusoe, Michael Hucka, Mingfang Wu, Neil Chue Hong, Peter Teuben, Shelley Stall, Stephan Druskat, Ted Carnevale, Thomas Morrell
/ Abstract
Scientific software registries and repositories serve various roles in their respective disciplines. These resources improve software discoverability and research transparency, provide information for software citations, and foster preservation of computational methods that might otherwise be lost over time, thereby supporting research reproducibility and replicability. However, developing these resources takes effort, and few guidelines are available to help prospective creators of registries and repositories. To address this need, we present a set of nine best practices that can help managers define the scope, practices, and rules that govern individual registries and repositories. These best practices were distilled from the experiences of the creators of existing resources, convened by a Task Force of the FORCE11 Software Citation Implementation Working Group during the years 2019-2020. We believe that putting in place specific policies such as those presented here will help scientific software registries and repositories better serve their users and their disciplines.