Building Software, Building Community: Lessons from the rOpenSci Project by Carl Boettiger, Scott Chamberlain, Edmund Hart, Karthik Ram.
Abstract:
rOpenSci is a developer collective originally formed in 2011 by graduate students and post-docs from ecology and evolutionary biology to collaborate on building software tools to facilitate a more open and synthetic approach in the face of transformative rise of large and heterogeneous data. Born on the internet (the collective only began through chance discussions over social media), we have grown into a widely recognized effort that supports an ecosystem of some 45 software packages, engages scores of collaborators, has taught dozens of workshops around the world, and has secured over $480,000 in grant support. As young scientists working in an academic context largely without direct support for our efforts, we have first hand experience with most of the the technical and social challenges WSSSPE seeks to address. In this paper we provide an experience report which describes our approach and success in building an effective and diverse community.
Given the state of world affairs, I can’t think of a better time for the publication of this article.
The key lesson that I urge you to draw from this paper is the proactive stance of the project in involving and reaching out to build a community around this project.
Too many projects (and academic organizations for that matter) take the approach that others know they exist and so they sit waiting for volunteers and members to queue up.
Very often they are surprised and bitter that the queue of volunteers and members is so sparse. If anyone dares to venture that more outreach might be helpful, the response is nearly always, sure, you go do that and let us know when it is successful.
How proactive are you in promoting your favorite project?
PS: The rOpenSci website.