Software Management Plans, Open Licences and Dissemination

11 December 2025 - 14:00-17:00

Online

RSE Team

All of our events may be recorded and shared via the University of Sheffield Kaltura platform so those who cannot attend may still benefit. We will consider your attendance implicit consent to this.

The application of the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) to a research software project is easier when you plan the development of your software. Considering who is in charge of the development, what tools will be used, who will be in charge of its long term maintenance and where are the potential risks related to software development are all important aspects of a successful software project. This course will introduce these ideas in the context of creating FAIR software for your research. Planning the development of your research software will help you with organisation and resource management, long term sustainability, and intellectual property aspects.

This event is for University of Sheffield researchers and research students only.

Prerequisite skills: No prior knowledge of any programming language or open research practices is required.

Learning Objectives

After completing this course, participants should be able to:

• Understand what is research software and when does it need a management plan.
• Recognize what are the main steps of the research software lifecycle.
• Create a plan for a software project and be able to select the right tools for it.
• Understand the potential risks associated with software development and how to overcome them.
• Understand why open licences are a key part of sharing software.
• Know how to choose an appropriate licence for software and the implications of your choices.
• Understand how to work with other openly licensed software and respect the terms of the licence.
• Select a repository that best suits your needs, and understand what best practice to follow if it’s necessary to deposit research outputs in more than one.
• Understand the creation of DOIs, how to get one for your software, and what types of output should have a DOI.
• Understand the importance of, and be able to create, good metadata for your software.
• Understand best practice around the citation of your software and what should be stored long term.

This course will be run online.

We are delighted to be able to make free at point of use training available to the research community, to enable better software and more open, reproducible research. However, free at point of use training is not free. The cost of a course can easily run to thousands of pounds, if preparation costs are taken into account.

If you sign up for a course, please make sure you either attend or cancel your booking. Bookings can usually be managed using myDevelopment or, failing that, by emailing rse@sheffield.ac.uk.

Running courses that are not fully attended wastes our funding (which is provided by taxpayers, charities and students, amongst others) and reduces our collective capacity to improve research outputs and researcher experiences.

Persistent failure to attend booked courses might result in you being excluded from future training opportunities.

More details and registration via myDevelopment.

Course material: https://fair2-for-research-software.github.io/Software_Lifecycle_Planning/