ScienceSoft becomes SciencePAD

In the past several weeks we have been talking about ScienceSoft and its ideas with more people from many projects, Institutes and research labs. As the discussion progressed, we have started understanding even more the potential of formalizing the information on software products and services and linking it to emerging service platforms, specialized applications and the growing amount of scientific data being produced in many research areas.

SciencePAD Roadmap

The main SciencePAD motivations, concepts and expectations have been described in an overview document published in March 2012. Since then the agreed plan has been steadily carried forward by a number of EMI partners and collaborating projects. The plan foresees four major phases, Alpha, Design, Concept, Operation. A roadmap document has been developed describing the main phases and a high-level development plan.

ScienceSoft at the EGI Technical Forum 2012

ScienceSoft is present this week at the EGI Technical Forum 2012 in Prague with a presentation and call for collaboration. We will present the roadmap and the features being developed and warmly welcome comments and contributions at all levels, including in leading the design and development of key roadmap features.

First prototype of the Software catalogue feature

The first prototype implementation of the Software catalogue feature is now available on the ScienceSoft web site.  Software products and services can be registered and simple relationships can be created between software and existing people, organizations and collaborations. As for the other catalogues, the data input is still rather manual as we refine the data model and decide which properties are worth collecting. In the coming weeks we will start working on automating the information discovery and simplifying the registration forms.

First prototype of Members, Organizations and Collaborations features

The first prototype implementation of the Member, Organizations and Collaborations features is now available on the ScienceSoft web site.  Members can set up personal profiles and register new organizations and collaborations. Simple relationships can be created among the registered entities. This is a basic first step, but it allows us to start seeing some action and collect ideas. It also provides the base for the Software registration feature to be enabled soon.

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ScienceSoft - Design Phase

ScienceSoft Design Phase

The ScienceSoft initiative enters its design phase. This phase is planned to last until the end of September 2012 and focus on the refinement of a few major requirements in well-defined pieces of functionality and concrete implementation plans. A major goal is to clearly understand whether the functionality already exist somewhere and can be reused, whether it has to be implemented anew, who wants to contribute to what, what resources are needed. Read the ScienceSoft Overview for more Information on ScienceSoft.

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ScienceSoft - Open Software for Open Science

ScienceSoft Logo

There is a wealth of open source software in use across scientific communities but the value of its contribution to science is under-estimated, under-utilised and often poorly coordinated. Some websites such as ohloh (http://www.ohloh.net/) offer directories that attempt to rate the quality and impact of open source software projects, but currently lack the means of attracting developers and users from academic communities and harvesting a large enough body of essential data to make their results meaningful for the scientific research environments.

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