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Module 3: Software Management Plans

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The training curriculum is currently undergoing final revisions and quality checks. All materials will be released shortly. Until the official release, please refrain from using, distributing, or implementing any part of these resources.

Learning Objectives

  • Learning Objective 1 (LO1): Describe how to use a Software Management Plan (SMP) to effectively manage research software projects of different sizes.

Total Module Duration

1 hour

Learning Objective 1

LO1: Describe how to use a Software Management Plan (SMP) to effectively manage research software projects of different sizes.

Learning Activities

  • Slide presentation (20 mins): Presentation on SMPs (can be reused from Netherlands eScience Center, Resource 1, with further slides available in Resource 2).
  • Discussion Activity (40 mins): The learners will be split into groups. Each group is assigned a software project and has to decide what kind of SMPs would be appropriate for their project. The list of software projects to choose from can be drawn from Resource 3. Things for them to think about:
    • Purpose: What is the current reason or expected end-use for developing the software?
    • Reliability: The effect of software failure and/or non-maintenance on: Risk of harm to self or others. This includes injury, privacy violation, bias, and inappropriate content.
    • Reputation: For example to self, institution or other.
    • Research: either your own or of others. This effect could be due to an obvious software failure ("crash") or a hidden one, for example, returning inconsistent numerical results on different operating systems.
    • Maintenance: The long-term effort needed to maintain the software as long as it might be used as a standalone tool or dependency. This includes maintenance of functions that can extend beyond the lifespan of the original development project and includes fixing bugs, dependency management, operating system compatibility, and security issues.
    • Define the level of maintenance of the research software: Is your SMP a low, medium or high level of management, according to the given template?
    • The learners may not arrive at a clear-cut decision, but that is fine. The goal is for the learners to get a sense of the level of management needed, and to discuss within their groups and come to a consensus.
    • More information available in Resource 3, from where the activity is adapted, and Resource 2, which provides a guide to building a plan.
    • Groups should then come together in plenum to present very short summaries of their group's SMPs, highlighting key takeaways from the activity.

Materials to Prepare

  • Slide presentation on SMPs (can be adapted from existing presentations, Resources 1, 2).
  • Supporting material for the discussion activity.

Instructor Notes

Slide presentation:

  • This module should cover the following broad content:
    • Overview of what SMPs are, why they are important, the use of different plans for different types of research software, and
    • Templates of different SMPs.
  • Reusable slides and suggested activities from the Netherlands eScience Center course are available to adapt or reuse for this module, as long as they are properly attributed and cited according to the CC BY 4.0 licence.

Discussion activity:

  • For the discussion activity, learners can choose from the list of example software projects listed in Resource 3, or choose their own project(s). The instructor can briefly present an overview of the software projects.
  • The instructor should provide the learners with some supporting materials for their group discussions. For example, a list of the topics and questions they should reflect on, and some example research software projects to guide the discussion. A SMP template from the eScience Center is available in Resource 4.

Resources

Slide presentation:

  1. SMP Slides. https://esciencecenter-digital-skills.github.io/research-software-support/modules/softwaremanagementplans/slides-smp/. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.
  2. Martinez-Ortiz, C., et al. Practical Guide to Software Management Plans. 1.1, Zenodo, 31 Jan. 2023, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7589725.

Discussion Activity:

  1. Build a Template. https://esciencecenter-digital-skills.github.io/research-software-support/modules/softwaremanagementplans/templatebuilding/. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.
  2. NL eScience Center. Software Management Plan Template. 2021, https://www.esciencecenter.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/SMP2021-v1.057.pdf.

Further Reading:

  1. Martinez-Ortiz, C. (2024, June 10). What, why and how: Software Management Plans (SMPs) & best practices in research software development. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11562451.
  2. Chue Hong, Neil Philipp, and Stephen Crouch. What Is a Software Management Plan and How Can It Help Your Project? Zenodo, 4 Nov. 2021. DOI.org (Datacite), https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.5648418.
  3. Castro, Leyla Jael. Machine-Actionable Software Management Plans. May 2024. DOI.org (Datacite), https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.11281952.
  4. Alves, Renato, et al. ELIXIR Software Management Plan for Life Sciences. 25 Oct. 2021. BioHackrXiv, https://doi.org/10.37044/osf.io/k8znb.
    Discipline-specific example if the target audience is more specific