Consultant (Software Informatics Infrastructure Priorities Report Activity)

We’re seeking expressions of interest in joining the ARDC to deliver our software informatics infrastructure priorities report.

Background

The ARDC has a program of work built around implementing the National Agenda for Research Software (hereafter “the Agenda”). The Agenda provides a framework for working towards recognition of research software as a first-class output of research. The framework considers what is needed in terms of infrastructure, guidance, community and advocacy to tackle 3 challenges:

making research software visible or seeing software
shaping new software for the broadest applicable audiences
sustaining existing research software that is valued and valuable.

Within the program is a project to make software more visible. We are seeking expressions of interest to deliver a component of that project in the form of a report.

The report we are seeking relates to identifying areas of infrastructure that will make software more visible. This includes infrastructure to facilitate:

the capture and preservation of various forms of software as outputs of research
discovery of these outputs and other software for use in research
the ready reuse of discovered software.

During the validation phase of the Agenda, a general need for infrastructure for greater visibility of research software was identified, but specific use cases and possible example infrastructures were not.

In 2022, the ARDC conducted a survey to better understand how researchers find software so that future work could be informed by this. We engaged eResearch Consultant Frankie Stevens to analyse the results and deliver a report detailing the findings.

In early 2023, we began work to:

define a set of use cases with reference to the output types (page 3) and stakeholders (page 4) defined in the final version of the Agenda
propose possible infrastructures that might be delivered for Australia to meet these use cases in line with our strategic priorities.

This work will conclude in March 2023.

We are seeking a consultant who will take all the above outputs to the broader community for feedback, elaboration and identification of priorities and produce a report. In this report, they will combine that feedback and a synthesis of the outputs into a small set of recommendations for priorities in infrastructure development in line with our strategic priorities.

The Consultant

The Consultant for this activity will have:

in-depth knowledge of the research environment and the challenges in developing informatics infrastructures – this knowledge can be for related output infrastructures like data or specific components like identifiers or repositories
excellent communication and facilitation skills
demonstrated experience working with research communities on common challenges to elicit requirements and priorities
experience in research sector consultancy.

Considered favourably are:

specific awareness of the needs in relation to informatics infrastructures for research software
in-depth knowledge of impact tracking initiatives.

Tasks for Expression of Interest

Provide:

a timeline and cost for completing the report, broken down into milestones of delivery
evidence with reference to the “Consultant” section of this page
a statement on possible risks in delivering the report and mitigation measures
a statement on your general availability to conduct the work
any potential conflicts of interest.

Questions

Please direct any questions to the Software Program Manager via [email protected]. Answers to anything not covered here will be appended to this page before the deadline.