Research Paper: “Software Must Be Recognised as an Important Output of Scholarly Research” (Preprint)

The following research paper (preprint) has been submitted to the International Journal of Digital Curation and was shared on arXiv.

Title

Software Must Be Recognised as an Important Output of Scholarly Research

Authors

Caroline Jay
University of Manchester

Robert Haines
University of Manchester

Daniel S. Katz
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Source

via arXiv

Abstract

Software now lies at the heart of scholarly re-search. Here we argue that as well as being important from a methodological perspective, software should, in many instances, be recognised as an output of research, equivalent to an academic paper. The article discusses the different roles that software may play in research and highlights the relationship between software and research sustainability and reproducibility. It describes the challenges associated with the processes of citing and reviewing software, which differ from those used forpapers. We conclude that whilst software out-puts do not necessarily fit comfortably with in the current publication model, there is a great deal of positive work underway that is likely tomake an impact in addressing this.

Direct to Full Text Article
6 pages; PDF.

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