Toward Research Software Categories
Wilhelm Hasselbring, Stephan Druskat, Jan Bernoth, Philine Betker, Michael Felderer, Stephan Ferenz, Anna-Lena Lamprecht, Jan Linxweiler, Bernhard Rumpe
TL;DR
The paper addresses the fragmented landscape of research software by proposing a multi-dimensional categorization along three axes: roles, developers, and maturity. It introduces a standardized template for describing categories and details role-based, developer-based, and maturity-based classifications, illustrating how these dimensions interact and evolve. By relating the framework to existing schemes (e.g., ARDC, EOSC) and domain-specific considerations, the work offers a foundation for tailored guidelines, evaluation, education, and funding decisions. The proposed approach aims to enhance reproducibility, recognition of Research Software Engineers (RSE), and strategic planning within research institutions, with future work needed to extend dimensions and refine inter-category relationships.
Abstract
Research software has been categorized in different contexts to serve different goals. We start with a look at what research software is, before we discuss the purpose of research software categories. We propose a multi-dimensional categorization of research software. We present a template for characterizing such categories. As selected dimensions, we present our proposed role-based, developer-based, and maturity-based categories. Since our work has been inspired by various previous efforts to categorize research software, we discuss them as related works. We characterize all these categories via the previously introduced template, to enable a systematic comparison.