Research IT

People sitting in a tiered lecture theatre listening to a person speaking at the front of the room

Reflections and Futures from Manchester Research Software Community

The Spring meeting of the Manchester Research Software Community featured a presentation on GitHub Project Automation as well as breakout groups to discuss the next steps for the group. Aman Goel reflects on what the community has achieved so far and their plans for the future.

We introduced a new format to our May meeting; we had both a presentation and a discussion and networking session which was held over lunch (kindly provided by the Software Sustainability Institute). We took advantage of the extra networking time to continue our efforts to make our events more collaborative and community-led. Thanks to everyone who expressed interest and attended the meeting!

The opening talk was an “Introduction to Github Project Automation” and was given by Donal Fellows, a Research Software Engineer from Research IT . Donal gave us an extensive overview of the subject and helped to illustrate his presentation and ideas via practical demonstrations. Seeing the process in action was very well received by the community members.

After the presentation we then held a discussion session. The attendees were divided into three smaller groups, two in-person and one online. All the groups discussed similar topics of community interest such as “data gathering protocol for enhanced reproducibility”, “establishing a balanced quality culture in research system development” and “challenges in project management and documentation”.

The groups took notes during their breakout discussions and reconvened to report back on their discussions. This was followed by a wrap up session and networking over lunch. We’re currently in the process of reaching out to the groups about their discussions so that they can take their conversations forward, and also have an opportunity to co-create related outputs.

Save the Date - 17th July!

Following feedback from the community we’re going to announce a call for Lightning Talks for our next meeting where members can present a topic of their interest to the wider community! Everyone is encouraged to submit a presentation and we especially welcome talks from researchers and PGRs from across the University. You don’t have to be an RSE to present, just have a topic related to research software!

The materials from our last meeting are now available on the CaDiR Teams space. Registration is now open for our next meeting on the 17th July!