Continuing our series of webinars on the topic of open access, during this webinar we will define what open software is, discuss motivations and challenges of producing open code and software, as well as basic concepts that help to do so. 

We will explain the many forms and dimensions of open software and its development, highlighting the importance of documentation, testing, packaging, communication and community in order to create successful and sustainable software.

Speakers

Renato Alves, Bio-IT EMBL

Following a PhD in human bacterial metagenomics and metatranscriptomics I took the role of Bio-IT project coordinator at EMBL Heidelberg, providing computational support to the research community at EMBL. For over 15 years I have contributed to several open and closed-source software projects using a multitude of programming languages and technologies from web to big data and cloud.

Brice Letcher, EMBL-EBI

I am a 4th year PhD student at the Iqbal lab working in computational microbial genomics. In my PhD I develop an open-source tool to build and genotype graphs of genomes. I am passionate about good software engineering and a keen contributor to the bioinformatics community, notably through building a formatting tool for snakemake (workflow manager) files.

Who is this course for?

This webinar is suitable for anyone who creates or is responsible for creating software and wishes to join the open science movement, or simply develop their scientific software openly.

A basic understanding of coding and/or software development, independent of programming language, would be beneficial.

Outcomes

By the end of the webinar you will be able to:

• Explain the benefits of open software
• Describe a set of open practices that help establish successful open software projects
• Identify the necessary steps for making your software more open
• Recognise the value of open software as a career strategy

DOI: 10.6019/TOL.OA_software-w.2021.00001.1

This webinar took place on 13 October 2021. Please click the 'Watch video' button to view the recording.