EarthCube Building Blocks: Software Stewardship for the Geosciences

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Geoscience and environmental science software is crucial for data analysis and generating new knowledge and understanding about the Earth. Because reproducibility of operations, calculations, and predictions done with this software is important for science, commercial, and regulatory applications, it is important that the software generated by geoscientists and their colleagues be captured, curated, managed, and made available to all interested parties upon request. This project initiates that process by building partnerships between computer scientist, software developers, and scientists across all geoscience domains with the goal or creating a software ecosystem and a culture of software stewardship that will empower geoscientists and others to make their software accessible and manage it as a valuable scientific asset. This work will examine the possibility of creating effective on-line tools that will guide users through best practices in software use and development, including componentizing codes, describing and documenting their codes, licensing their programs, and maintaining reusable code. It will also explore the best and most effective means for training geoscientists and providing appropriate educational/training materials to dramatically improve the ability of geoscientists to more effectively develop and curate software generated by themselves, their students, and others. Broader impacts of the work include building infrastructure for science, engagement of early career professionals in both computer and geoscience, and increasing cyber sophistication of geoscience practitioners. The project supports a core team that is geographically distributed (California, Pennsylvania, and Colorado) and partners with a nation-wide consortium of academic organizations dedicated to advancing geoscience geospatial needs.