Software is often a critical component of scientific research. It can be part of the academic research methods used to produce research results, or it may be the actual academic research result. Software, however, has rarely been considered to be a citable artefact in its own right. With the advent of open-source software, artefact evaluation committees of conferences, and journals that include source code and running systems as part of the published supporting material, it is expected that software will increasingly be recognized as part of the academic process. It is therefore essential that the quality and sustainability of this software is accounted for.

Research IT offers a range of services to UoM researchers such as high performance computing and software consultancy but how do you know if these services are relevant to you and your research? If they are how do you describe them and cost them correctly in your grant proposal?

Come along to the next Research IT Grant Support Clinic on the 22nd of June where researchers and research support staff can discover more about the skills and services that we offer and, importantly, how to include them in grant proposals.

Traditionally the first step in interpreting video is to code it into a form that can be analysed systematically. The coding process is currently performed manually, and it can be slow and difficult, and biased by subjectivity. David Mawdsley (Research IT) recently presented a poster at the first “Advances in Data Science” conference explaining how we are helping Dr Caroline Jay’s group develop a way to quickly code human behaviours allowing the rapid analysis of hours of video.

Research IT members recently took part in a University of Manchester Digital Humanities workshop – “Introduction to data, the command line and automating tasks for the digital humanities”. The workshop was led by Jez Cope, Research Data Manager, University of Sheffield Library and support was provided by Gerard Capes and David Mawdsley (Research IT, UoM).

Thank you to everyone who came along to the latest Research IT Club and especially those who took the opportunity to ask questions! The presentations are now available from the links below.

EPSRC has announced a call to support Research Software Engineer (RSE) Fellowships for a period of up to 5 years. The Fellowships are open to exceptional individuals in the software field who demonstrate leadership and have combined expertise in programming and a solid knowledge of the research environment.

The University end of financial year is rapidly approaching and, as usual, Research IT anticipates making a procurement for the Central Shared Facility (CSF) and other Research Infrastructure platforms, such as the DPSF and iCSF, at this time. Thank you to those researchers who have already committed funds!

Research IT is organising a Mathematica Summer Workshop at the University of Manchester on the 27th – 29th of June 2017. This will be an opportunity to bring the regional Mathematica user community together to exchange experiences and showcase research projects and teaching experience involving Mathematica.

The drop-in session dates for May have just been announced! We’ve really enjoyed hearing about your research and helping researchers from across the Faculties tackle their Research IT issues. Come along and see if we can help boost your research!

Research IT is pleased to welcome Dr Angus Hearmon who has recently joined as Head of Research IT.

The next Research IT Club will be held on the 10^th of May and will feature a welcome from the new Head of Research IT, Angus Hearmon as well as updates from our research infrastructure and software engineering teams. To attend the event please register so we know how much coffee to order in!

If you are wondering where the term “Research Software Engineer (RSE)” came from then a new report could help to explain. The first State of the Nation Report for Research Software Engineers provides a history of the RSE campaign and a snapshot of the RSE community as it stands today.