Welcome to the Research Software Engineer's Toolkit - the RSE Toolkit (referred to as RTK in this README).
What is the RSE Toolkit?
- an open resource for sharing best practices in research software engineering
- a community maintained and moderated guide covering general software engineering and domain-specific practices
- a platform for knowledge sharing by RSEs of any experience level, from novice to expert, working in any research domain.
RTK is intended to be a community developed resource for Research Software Engineers (RSEs), researchers, academics and anyone involved in building research software. If you're a user of research software, or you're new to the field, you may also find a range of useful information in this repository.
There is a wealth of information out there. So much information, in fact, that it can sometimes be difficult to find what we're looking for, or more generally, to find a summary of the things it is useful to know or be aware of as an RSE.
The initial list of resource areas for RTK is likely to change over time. Some elements may grow, others may disappear and new areas are likely to be added.
It's taken some time to get round to working on this but it's hoped that this initial bootstrapping phase will result in RTK gaining contributions and developing as a community resource.
The core set of resources that RTK is aiming to develop initially is:
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Tech Hub: A place to find details of the most important technical skills that RSEs can learn, why they're important and where to learn them! The Tech Hub will also include overviews of key technical areas such as testing, CI, CD, etc.
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Training Hub: A place to find a summary of the different things that it's important to know as an RSE, categorised by specific RSE role and career aims, as well as a comprehensive directory of RSE training resources.
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Research Hub: Information on RSE-related research resources, how to get research credit for your RSE work if you're a research-focused RSE and advice and links to resources to help develop your research profile as an RSE.
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rtk: A Python command line tool with pluggable modules for undertaking common RSE tasks - develop and contribute your own modules or help to extend existing code.
The RTK resources will be available through the GitHub pages site for RTK and can be accessed at https://github.com/RSEToolkit/RSEToolkit.github.io.
This started out as an idea quite sometime ago but it has taken a long time to begin populating the resource. Some initial content was added to get things going and this has then been taken forward by a small team brought together as part of the International RSE Leaders Workshop 2020 in September 2020.
We value and encourage contributions to this resource. To ensure that everyone feels welcome and able to suggest new material they'd like to see, contribute new content or engage in discussion about the RSE Toolkit's content, it is important that you are aware of and adhere to our Code of Conduct.
The Code of Conduct applies to any interactions that you have in relation to the RSE Toolkit, either via GitHub, our Slack channel (#rsetoolkit on UK RSE Slack) or any other such means.
Contributions to RTK are welcome. See our contributing guidelines for full details of how you can contribute.