Speaker
Description
Background:
Research associates at our institute frequently develop methods for investigating building
systems and indoor climate technology. While these researchers excel in their domains and
create valuable computational methods, they often lack formal software development
training. This leads to challenges in code maintainability and accessibility, particularly when
sharing research outputs with stakeholders outside academia or attempting cross-
institutional collaboration.
Challenges:
Two primary challenges emerge: First, the complexity of research code makes it difficult for
decision-makers and practitioners to utilize the developed methods directly. Here, web-based
frontends are a promising option to let users understand the research in an interactive
manner. Second, the varying programming expertise among researchers often results in code
that doesn't meet the quality standards required for open-source development and
collaboration with other institutes. To address this, CI/CD pipelines are helpful.
Approach:
Our institute's software development team addresses these challenges through a dual
approach. They develop web applications to make research methodologies and results
accessible to the public while simultaneously reviewing and improving researchers' code
bases. This includes implementing better development practices and establishing proper
software engineering processes.
Implementation:
To streamline collaboration between software developers and researchers, we developed a
requirements web application that helps researchers define technical specifications at project
inception. This tool bridges the knowledge gap between domain experts and software
developers, reducing iterative cycles in application development. Additionally, once
researchers start developing their methods, we support this development with extensive
CI/CD pipelines. Herein, we established a Kubernetes cluster hosting a scalable GitLab runner,
providing centralized continuous integration capabilities for all software projects.
Results:
This structured approach has significantly improved both the accessibility of research outputs
and the quality of research software. The requirements web application has streamlined the
development process, while our CI/CD infrastructure ensures consistent code quality across
projects. This framework enables effective collaboration between researchers and software
developers, despite their different technical backgrounds.
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