In January, Kristaps Oškalns, a representative of the Latvian Data Stewards Network and DataverseLV repository administrator, participated in a week-long training programme, S³ School – Sustainable Scientific Software School, which took place in Annecy, France. More than 40 participants from different European countries participated in the training and learnt the basics of developing, maintaining, and publishing sustainable and FAIR-compliant research software.
During the training, special attention was paid to practical solutions – performance analysis and targeted optimisation, ensuring reproducibility of containerisation, basic security principles, automated testing and thoughtful documentation. Such good practices contribute to the possibility of reliable long-term use of software in various environments and institutions.
At the end of the programme, participants jointly developed a draft of a best practice checklist that covers the main steps towards sustainable and FAIR-compliant research software – from version control and execution environment description to documentation, licensing and publication with citation information. It is currently planned to evaluate the possibilities of adapting this checklist to the needs of Latvia and including it in the DataverseLV roadmap as a practical support tool for researchers and data curators.
