Research Software Directory
The Research Software Directory (RSD) has been created to help researchers find software for their research. A well-organised platform containing research software and research projects. By making research software more findable, the RSD promotes its reuse and therefore its impact.
When you are looking for research software, you want to know for what it has been used before. This will help you determine whether you can use the software in your research. If you have written your own research software, you can publish it in the RSD. This makes your software more visible to colleagues who in their turn can reuse and cite it.
The Utrecht Research Software Directory
Within the Research Software Directory you will find a separate environment with an overview of Utrecht research software and research projects. This way you can easily see which software your colleagues have applied in their research.
Getting started with RSD
Do you want to start using RSD? It is very simple. If you are looking for software, just visit the website. If you want to publish software yourself, log in to SURFConext with your Solis ID. Please read the instructions below.
Searching via the keywords entry you could find all software on ‘machine learning’ or ‘visualisation’. Or you could ask: ‘Give me all the software created for Utrecht University’. Or: ‘What research software has been made for climate research?’
The context of the software
You can see in the RSD where the research software can be found. An example is GitHub. Software engineers save their software in a GitHub repository. Here you can see:
how actively the software is being worked on;
whether it is up-to-date;
whether the software is ready for use or still under development.
Furthermore, you can see where the software is mentioned in papers, presentations, and blog posts and who has collaborated on the software. This could be developers, but also researchers from other institutes. You will also find information in the RSD on how to cite the software if you want to reuse it in your research.
Who is the Research Software Directory for?
The Research Software Directory is for researchers, software developers and research engineers who want to publish and reuse software. It is a research information system filled with information (metadata) about research software and projects . Some of this information is extracted by the RSD from existing information systems, such as Zenodo, DOI and ORCID via links created by users.
How to publish your researchproject in the RSD
- Log in with your Utrecht University Solis ID via SURFConext or request access with your ORCID ID;
- Start a new software page;
- Provide the basic information about your software by filling in the different fields per page. Note that there are several pages to be filled in;
- Save and view your input by using the upper right buttons;
- Once you are satisfied with the result, you can change the status of your page to published.
Also check the user documentation here for instructions.
What is the eScience Center?
The eScience Center develops research software. Software intended for reuse. To show which research software is available and to stimulate the reuse of software, the eScience Center developed the Research Software Directory in collaboration with Utrecht University and other institutes.