Software of some form is now essential to almost all research. Alongside commercial packages, many researchers and research software engineers spend significant time creating and contributing to software, a resource which is currently under-represented in the scholarly record. This creates three key problems.

Firstly, trust in research, particularly scientific research, is reliant on the peer review system but without ready access to the software used to perform a given analysis it is difficult for readers to truly check an article’s validity. Secondly, lack of access to the software underlying research makes it significantly more difficult to build new methods on top of existing ones: it becomes harder and harder to “stand on the shoulders of giants”. Finally, promotion and hiring in academic research is heavily dependent on building a portfolio of well-cited papers, and researchers whose main work is software development often have fewer papers of their own and are named co-authors on fewer than their colleagues.

One way of addressing these issues is by enabling and normalising citation of software. Software citation brings the effort of software development within current model of academic credit, while simultaneously enhancing the scholarly record by linking together software with publications, datasets, methods and other research objects.

The British Library, Software Sustainability Institute and Alan Turing Institute are co-organising a workshop on Software Citation to raise the profile of the topic, provide information and address current challenges.

This workshop is split over two days; each day is mostly independent and aimed at different audiences. Please note that there is no "all inclusive ticket type" - make sure you book tickets for each part of the workshop you are interested in.

Day 1

The first day is an afternoon workshop giving a general overview of the purpose and benefits of software citation in the context of academic research. This workshop is aimed at researchers and RSEs, and anyone interested in learning more about software citation. After attending, participants will understand the importance of research software in the scholarly communications ecosystem, and of citing software, and be able to correctly cite the software they use in their own work.

Evening event

On the evening of Day 1, the Alan Turing Institute will host a reception followed by a public lecture given by Dr. James Hetherington, Director of Research Engineering, titled Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom: perspectives on social credit systems for software scholars.

Day 2

The second part of the event is a full-day workshop focusing on gaining a shared understanding of current barriers to effective use of software citation and starting to develop practical solutions. This part will be aimed at those with responsibility for developing policy, infrastructure, training and guidance in this area, including Research Software Engineers, IT staff, librarians and archivists.

Working collaboratively, the participants will explore the current technical and cultural challenges preventing software citation from becoming a part of mainstream research culture, and identify potential solutions and the stakeholders who may be able to realise them. Based on these discussions, a report for the sector will be produced giving recommendations.