What Is Research Software?
Research software is any software created during the research process, or for a research process. Research software comes in many formats, such as Python scripts, R codes, and Jupyter notebooks. Research software can have many applications including data analysis, computational models, and machine learning models.
In the modern research environment, it is increasingly common for biomedical research projects to include the development of research software, and the development of research software is the main outcome of many research projects.
Why Share Research Software?
Research software is often critical to the analysis and understanding of research. This means that just like with manuscripts and datasets, sharing research software is critical for the advancement of science. Research software sharing:
- Enables reproducible and transparent research
- Prevents duplicate efforts
- Increases the pace of discoveries to improve human health
Additionally, there is evidence that funding agencies such as the NIH may impose stricter requirements for software data sharing in the near future.