HCC: Medium: Scientists and their Software: A Sociotechnical Investigation of Scientific Software Development and Sharing

科学研究越来越依赖于先进的社会和技术基础设施，即网络基础设施（CI）。反过来，科学网络基础设施的基石是科学网络基础设施软件（SCIS），它可以从数字仪器收集数据，通过执行数学算法分析数据，通过标准化文件格式和可广泛访问的数据库实现数据可视化和数据共享。尽管科学信息系统对数据密集型研究很重要，但是人们对科学家如何实际使用、采用和开发科学软件知之甚少。需要更多的研究来探索软件、软件开发和软件共享实践是如何成为社区产品、资源或实践的。本研究项目将通过对6个研究小组的定性、人种学研究，利用观察、半结构化访谈和文献分析，研究科学家如何将SCIS作为他们日常研究实践的一部分。研究人员将调查关于SCIS的决策是如何做出的；对使用、采用、开发或共享软件的实际做法进行记录、分类和分析；确定科学家在地方、组织和社区层面分享软件的激励因素和抑制因素；并辨别SCIS系统对科学数据和科学研究过程有意无意的影响。理解科学信息系统的开发和共享对于确保社区内部和社区之间共享数据集的持续完整性，促进使用国家研究基金开发的工具和实践的共享，最重要的是，支持科学研究的基本原则：公开交流发表的研究成果背后的过程和实践。此外，了解这些做法将有助于我们国家未来几代科学家和工程师的教育和培训。因此，该项目将通过提供概念性工具，在考虑如何以及何时设计和支持软件以使更广泛的研究社区可访问和有用时，提供指导，从而使领域科学家、SCIS开发人员、计算机支持协同工作（CSCW）和软件工程（SE）学者和政策制定者受益。

Scientific research is increasingly reliant on advanced social and technical infrastructures called cyberinfrastructure (CI). In turn, the cornerstone of scientific cyberinfrastructure is Scientific Cyberinfrastructure Software (SCIS) that enables data collection from digital instruments, analysis of data through the execution of mathematical algorithms, data visualization and sharing of data through standardized file formats and widely accessible databases. Despite the importance of SCIS for data-intensive research, too little is known about how scientists actually use, adopt and develop scientific software. More research is needed to explore how software, software development and software sharing practices are, and can be, community products, resources or practices. This research project will examine how scientists develop SCIS as part of their day-to-day research practice through a qualitative, ethnographic study of 6 research groups using observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. The researchers will investigate how decisions about SCIS are made; document, classify and analyze actual practices for using, adopting, developing or sharing software; identify scientists' incentives and disincentives to share software at the local, organizational and community levels; and discern the impacts, intentional and unintentional, that SCIS systems have on scientific data and the scientific research process.Understanding SCIS development and sharing is necessary to ensure continued integrity of datasets shared within and among communities, facilitate the sharing of the tools and practices that are developed using national research funds and most importantly, support a fundamental tenet of scientific research: the open communication of the processes and practices behind published research findings. Furthermore, understanding these practices will support the education and training of our nation's future generations of scientists and engineers. This project will thus benefit domain scientists, SCIS developers, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Software Engineering (SE) scholars and policy makers by providing conceptual tools that will provide guidance when considering how and when software can be designed and supported to be accessible and useful to the broader research community.