Speaker
Description
The curation of software metadata safeguards their quality and compliance with institutional software policies. Moreover, metadata that was enriched with development and usage information can be used for evaluation and reporting of academic KPIs. Software CaRD ("Software Curation and Reporting Dashboard"; ZT-I-PF-3-080), a project funded by the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC), develops tools to support the curation and reporting steps of the research software publication process. The dashboard will present metadata collected by the HERMES workflow in a graphical user interface, assess compliance with a configurable set of policies, and highlight issues and breaches. It will be usable both standalone and in a CI/CD context.
As a first step in the project, and as a foundation for the curation dashboard, a description format for software publication policies had to be developed. Our solution takes an approach that allows for configuration at different levels of abstraction: Low level building blocks describe metadata (e.g., CodeMeta) validation in terms of the Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL). A higher-level configuration language allows users to reuse and parameterize these components. This makes Software CaRD usable for RSEs, management, and policy makers, and it allows for customization that facilitates usage in different research institutions.
This poster submission presents our approach, showcases example policies, and gives guidance to users of the application.
