EarthCube Building Blocks: Software Stewardship for the Geosciences

地球科学和环境科学软件对于数据分析和产生关于地球的新知识和理解至关重要。由于使用该软件完成的操作、计算和预测的再现性对于科学、商业和监管应用程序非常重要，因此由地球科学家及其同事生成的软件必须被捕获、策划、管理，并根据要求提供给所有感兴趣的各方。该项目通过在所有地球科学领域的计算机科学家、软件开发人员和科学家之间建立伙伴关系来启动这一过程，其目标是创建一个软件生态系统和软件管理文化，使地球科学家和其他人能够使他们的软件易于访问并将其作为有价值的科学资产进行管理。这项工作将检查创建有效的在线工具的可能性，这些工具将指导用户完成软件使用和开发的最佳实践，包括代码组件化、描述和记录代码、许可程序以及维护可重用代码。它还将探索培训地球科学家的最佳和最有效的方法，并提供适当的教育/培训材料，以显著提高地球科学家更有效地开发和管理他们自己、他们的学生和其他人生成的软件的能力。这项工作的更广泛影响包括为科学建设基础设施，让计算机和地球科学领域的早期职业专业人员参与进来，以及提高地球科学从业人员的网络技术水平。该项目支持一个地理分布的核心团队（加利福尼亚、宾夕法尼亚和科罗拉多），并与致力于推进地球科学地理空间需求的全国性学术组织联盟合作。

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.