How to become the JuRSE "Code of the Month"

You may have seen the monthly annoucements of the JuRSE Code of the Month in FZJ’s or JuRSE’s newsletters, letting people know that FZJ is producing very interesting, capable, competitive research software worth recognizing. We are not (only) looking for perfect, shiny products with lots of users and long-standing RSE practices here. Sure, these are great candidates for becoming JuRSE Code of the Month, but they are not the only ones: we are also keen on the interesting stories behind the code, as we did, e.g., with workflows as research software, meta-research software, PhDware done well, or software for data.

So, what does it take to become JuRSE Code of the Month (besides getting our attention)? Fairly simple:

• The software needs to be listed in the Helmholtz Research Software Directory, which is generally a good idea anyway.
• The RSD entry should be fairly polished, i.e., with an accessible README (pro tip: the RSD can parse your repo’s README, no need to maintain both), an explicit contact person (very important, but does not have to be from FZJ), all contributors etc.
• The repo should be reasonably clean, e.g., have a proper license, a CITATION.cff file, a DOI (e.g., through Zenodo), and so on.
• And of course, the software should have major contributions from Forschungszentrum Jülich.

And while we are already talking: all these aspects are relevant for the upcoming Helmholtz Software Quality Indicators, too. So, if you develop research software yourself and want to make this count for PoF, you should tick these boxes anyway.

That said, as mentioned in the beginning, we are always looking for something “special” about our Codes of the Month. Maybe there is a great website/visualization/platform around it, the software received recognition somewhere or it sparked a collaboration, changed everything because of an unexpected result, any lessons learned you think people should know about? Don’t get me wrong: well-written research software is great without such a story, but it makes writing the Code of the Month highlights easier :-).

So, if your software is a good candidate or if you come across one, let us know: rse@fz-juelich.de

Your JuRSE Team