Four simple recommendations to encourage best practices in research software

• Authors: JIMÉNEZ Rafael C; KUZAK Mateusz; ALHAMDOOSH Monther; BARKER Michelle; BATUT Bérénice; BORG Mikael; CAPELLA-GUTIERREZ Salvador; HONG Neil Chue; COOK Martin; CORPAS Manuel; FLANNERY Madison; GARCIA Leyla; GELPÍ Josep Ll; GLADMAN Simon; GOBLE Carole; FERREIRO Montserrat González; GONZALEZ-BELTRAN Alejandra; GRIFFIN Philippa C; GRÜNING Björn; HAGBERG Jonas; HOLUB Petr; HOOFT Rob; ISON Jon; KATZ Daniel S; LESKOŠEK Brane; GÓMEZ Federico López; OLIVEIRA Luis J; MELLOR David; MOSBERGEN Rowland; MULDER Nicola; PEREZ-RIVEROL Yasset; PERGL Robert; PICHLER Horst; POPE Bernard; SANZ Ferran; SCHNEIDER Maria V; STODDEN Victoria; SUCHECKI Radosław; SVOBODOVÁ VAŘEKOVÁ Radka; TALVIK Harry-Anton; TODOROV Ilian; TRELOAR Andrew; TYAGI Sonika; GOMPEL Maarten van; VAUGHAN Daniel; VIA Allegra; WANG Xiaochuan; WATSON-HAIGH Nathan S; STEVE Crouch
• Year of publication: 2017
• Type: Article in Periodical
• Magazine / Source: F1000Research
• MU Faculty or unit: Central European Institute of Technology
• Web: https://f1000research.com/articles/6-876/v1
• Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.11407.1
• Field: Informatics
• Keywords: Open Source; code; software; guidelines; best practices; recommendations; Open Science; quality; sustainability; FAIR
• Description: Scientific research relies on computer software, yet software is not always developed following practices that ensure its quality and sustainability. This manuscript does not aim to propose new software development best practices, but rather to provide simple recommendations that encourage the adoption of existing best practices. Software development best practices promote better quality software, and better quality software improves the reproducibility and reusability of research. These recommendations are designed around Open Source values, and provide practical suggestions that contribute to making research software and its source code more discoverable, reusable and transparent. This manuscript is aimed at developers, but also at organisations, projects, journals and funders that can increase the quality and sustainability of research software by encouraging the adoption of these recommendations.