US-RSE Position/Policy Papers Brainstorming

[cmaimone]

What topics would it be useful for US-RSE to have position papers on? Are there policy recommendations we can write-up, endorse, and then circulate more broadly? Brainstorm a list of potential topics and what each topic would entail, and then gauge interest in smaller groups writing up such papers.

Seeding the brainstorming (from SC strategic meeting):

• Tenure
• Long-term support for software in proposals
• Review process includes software piece
• Software management plans
• Career paths and institutional support
• a paper on a vision for RSEs in the US in 5 years, gaps, and activities to address them
• Diversity position paper from DEI group
• State of the field (in the US)
• Needs in CI (either continuous integration or cyberinfrastructure) to support RSEs and what institutions need to do to meet them
• Why US News and World report should include research software capabilities in departmental/school rankings
• Metrics for evaluating an organization's research software capabilities
• What is research software engineering in the large

[nfultz]

I think an (anonymous) salary / rates survey could be informative; especially if getting written in to a grant.

[cmaimone]

@nfultz - yes, always good info to get. If you're looking for it, there is some salary info in the international RSE survey (one or many reasons we encourage people to fill it out). The most recent round of the survey just completed and the data isn't available yet, but there's info from a few years ago.