Do we really want the email group to be invite-only? It was off-putting to me, at least.

In other news, my community (image analysis) has recently adopted a unified Discourse forum, which I would consider a fantastic, more full-feature option for this group. See example here:

https://forum.image.sc/

Here is a discussion about how to run discourse as both an online forum and a mailing list:

https://forum.image.sc/t/formal-policy-for-project-to-be-a-software-partner/18834/14

A specific advantage over Google Groups is the use of tags, so that users can subscribe only to specific topics. It's also fully open source so it can be run on our own hardware.

Hi All,

I had a chat with Sam Moskwa around a RSE eResearch Australasia workshop.

Here are the action items:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V5ZHQeLzPYXa3ll2CJCZjXlKVFGLICdYpKKfVFxPbYk/edit#

Please have a look and discuss either here or in the document.

Rowland.

1. Perth f2f update
2. Plan f2f in other states
3. 1 day workshop on software skills/sustainability/something across the RSE community and ANDS/Nectar/RDS (Michelle Barker)
4. Promote RSEs at the 2018 eResearch conference (Sam Moskwa)
5. Other businesses- review hit issues
6. Communication, email contact list and/or chatroom?

We've been invited to present a lightning talk during the International Session at RSE-2018.
This will be for 2 minutes and 1 slide.
Find a draft of the slide via this link: RSE-AUS-1-Page-2018.pdf

Any comments or suggestions would be most appreciated.

Zoom link is here:
https://unimelb.zoom.us/j/6552003787

Please add any agenda items under this comment.

https://rse.ac.uk/resources/how-to-start-an-rse-group/

Agenda:

• Bio IT meeting at ABACBS (https://www.abacbs.org/conference2018/about/)
• NSW f2f meeting
• RSE presence at Monthly TechTalk 2018 (https://www.meetup.com/monthlytechtalk/)

Minutes from the last meeting: #47

Hi All,

I will be transitioning to a full time role at UoM and will therefore not be able to continue to chair and provide followup for the RSE community. I wanted to write down all the things that need to be handed over:

Organising the monthly meetings

• Sending emails to the committee
• Contact list of the emails for the committee members
• Using my own Zoom meeting room id
• Creating an issue in github for the agenda
• Calendar meeting needs to be updated with another owner

Followup

• Following up queries made by the committee and the community
• Following up on upcoming face to face meetings
• Approving of new members to the Google Groups is already being done by others.

Website

• Maintaining website at https://rse-aunz.github.io/

eResearch Australasia 2018

• Rowland has permission to continue to chair the preconference meeting, but won't be able to followup.
• Rowland can still be a part of the BoF, but won't be able to followup.

It would be great to discuss this in the next committee meeting #26

1. An agreed name.
2. A manifesto.
3. An elected steering committee.
4. Seed funding.
5. A community manager.
6. A permanent online presense.
7. A schedule of events.
   1. a Tech Talk (Feb).
   2. a workshop at C3DIS (May).
   3. representation at ARDC skills symposium (July - provisional).
   4. a full-day workshop at eResAU (October).

Just to let everyone know I'm at a Working towards Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE) workshop for the next 8 hours.

There are a lot of RSEs here from all over the world. I'll be taking notes but if anyone wants anything specific asked of this international community, please post a message.

(Sorry for the late notice)

Hi All,

Agreements on Terms of Reference - Goal is to advocate for the RSE community by helping with the lack of career paths, place to ask for help generally and to help explain what RSEs do

Here are the action items in no particular order:

1. Agreement that the Train the Trainer with ANDS/Nectar/RDS to go ahead.

Tentative people to talk to around this - feel free to ask for help if you can't do this:
Amanda for Queensland
Craig for NSW
Bob for ACT
Need a Vic volunteer
No representation from WA, TAS or SA.

2. Provide a centralised place of position descriptions to help describe what RSEs do.
   2.1 Sam to get AeRO collation if it exists, same for CSIRO
   2.2 Suggested to capture the results of a "Explain what you do in one sentence" exercise in one place
   2.3 Manodeep to get the UK PD that came about from their work
   2.4 To also provide performance reporting and KPIs

3. Provide a centralised place to collect use cases, especially around academics getting credit, or institutions who are doing it well. eg Journal of Open Source Software

4. To diversify the interim committee to include more regional university based RSEs and more research focused RSEs. This was to be done by tapping into our professional networks.
   eg. Ira Cooke from JCU.

5. Create a centralised place to show where we can advertise and get the word out
   eg. CAUDIT, AeRO, eResearch, Questnet, via Intersect networks

6. Aim to have a vote for long term RSE committee at eResearch Australia - with video conferencing available.

Attendees:

• Kathryn Barker ARDC
• Grahame Boland CCG (software biosciences domain)
• Krupali CCG (software)
• Catherine (sp?) data scientist at Curtin

Most people from CCG have an industry focus and there is a learning curve.
Talked about data curation at scale and suggested Stemformatics as an example to check out.

ACTION: RM to send KB slides from January 2018 talk at ARDC skills team
ACTION: Try to catchup with ARDC skills team in new year.

I am adding two items that will be relevant to discuss. This will also be the last intermin steering committee meeting before eRA.

Agenda:

• Update on the 1-day workshop and BoF at eRA
• Updates on the QLD F2F planning (if any)

Hi Everyone!

Here are the notes I made last week at the victoria RSE meeting, from the break out group on "Community".

Community in Research Software

• The community needs to be established early as a safe, inviting space
• The community should meet face to face, ideally in a small ish group (40-60), for a few days, to discuss ideas.
• We could create a directory of contacts (which could be public/private facing), which would provide a way for people to find others with skill sets they would like to work with.
• Events we could run include unconference type events, such as the rOpenSci unconference - See the USA unconf in 2018 and the Australian ozunconf in 2017.
• Another event could be a grant application evening event, where people work together to create a grant application in an evening, and then pitch the idea at the end of the night. A winner is announced by vote, and they win a small monetary prize

What do we want out of the community?

• A space to get help
• A place for support

Other ideas

• A full-time community manager would very valuable
• mediums for communication: Slack, Twitter, Discuss forum

STA released the following statement regarding the importance STEM and policy decisions affect discovery and innovation. Figured I would note the statement here and see if we should make STA aware of our efforts

 Collectively representing more than 70,000 Australian scientists and technologists through our membership and staff, we call for science to be a priority platform for the major parties’ campaigns in the next federal election.

Science and technology will shape our future, but without adequate support and high profile, Australian science, innovation and discovery will fall by the wayside.

There are four areas of focus we call on decision-makers and candidates to address when Australians are called to vote at the next election:

    A whole-of-government plan for science and technology
    A strategy to equip the future Australian workforce with STEM skills
    Strong investment in both basic and applied research
    Creating policy informed by the best available evidence 

Specific issues to be addressed include:

    A thorough and thoughtful response to the R&D Tax Incentive review, that achieves a system that boosts public-private collaboration and accentuates Australia’s scientific and technological strengths
    A clear and long-term plan to support Australia’s research infrastructure, informed by the National Research Infrastructure Roadmap
    A bold and ambitious national target for scientific and technological research investment, which puts Australia in a position to lead the world in STEM.
    Action to remove barriers (such as caps and limits) that stand in the way of Australians participating and excelling in STEM education 

A government that uses science to inform and underpin its decisions will lead Australia to a brighter future.

A government that directly invests in discovery-led, basic research will unlock the solutions of the future.

A government that fosters and rewards innovation and entrepreneurship will secure Australia’s economic success.

A government that leads from the front, inspiring the private sector to invest in science and technology, will help Australia achieve a stable and prosperous future.

We, the nation’s science and technology leaders, will work hard to ensure that the health, wealth and wellbeing of all Australians are secured for many generations to come.

Working in the solutions sector, the thousands of STEM professionals in Australia will work to tackle the great challenges facing the world, and solve them with science.

In striving towards this bold vision, we ask for the support of Australians, Australian governments and candidates in future federal elections.

Aug 28, 2018 at 2 pm

Agenda:

• Finalize the questions to appear on the AUS international survey questions
• Open up the googlegroups to be readable without having to sign-in

We should probably have a listing of the interim steering committee in the root directory of this repo. I am hesitant to put any contact info though but can be convinced otherwise (perhaps the committee members can add their own contact info, iff they are fine with that)

Planning for the eResAU18 RSE Workshop.

• Only 17 people have signed up to date. This may be due to cost, clashes with other workshops, etc.

• Possible solutions to increase participation include:

  • Provide a limited number of 'free' passes to students.
  • Provide a means for people to contribute in advance of the workshop.
  • Provide a means to collaborate online during the workshop.

• There was agreement that we need to put more detail into the workshop schedule, including:

  • More description about sessions.
  • Session deliverables.
  • Speakers.
  • Session MCs.
  • etc.

• Please, add your comments in the following document:
  Workshop for RSEs: Recognition and Career Development for Researchers who Code

The eResAU18 RSE BoF Session.

• Proposal to use this session to share the proceedings from the workshop with a wider audience, including:
  • An overview of the RSE context.
  • Deliverables from the workshop.
  • Open the call for nominations for Steering Committee.

Action items:

1. Finalize a list of speakers. (Mon. 1st Oct.)
2. Finalise the session MCs. (Mon. 1st Oct.)
3. Finalize the Workshop Schedule. (Tue. 2nd Oct.)
4. Agree on the collaboration tools for the workshop. (Tue. 2nd Oct.) - Nick May
5. Advertise the workshop more widely. (Wed. 3rd Oct.)

When I sent around the original invitation email to you I mentioned:

_We estimate that the time commitment would be around 3-5 hours per month maximum, including a video conference call meeting every month.

We hope that within the first 6 to 12 months that we would have a community with a transparently elected Steering Committee._

I wanted to start a discussion so that we could set some expectations of what members of the Interim Steering Committee should be expected to do within those 3-5 hours per month.

So far I have thought of three:

1/ Proactively try to find and engage with RSEs in your local campus/university and highlight opportunities to reach them through other local activities

2/ Proactively work on our two main focus points (currently) - collecting use cases and providing position descriptions to help describe RSEs.

3/ Attend the monthly meeting to discuss the previous two.

What does everyone else think about this? Is this reasonable? Happy to discuss this in the next meeting if needed.

Hi everyone,

I put together some notes in a google doc. You should all have comment ability, or stick them in the comments below.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-70pEUH_l_1osgZecoIWDJgl19rZVu_WfwXKF0ViIO4/edit#

Slides here:
http://tinyurl.com/y8msqdk6

Sorry, could someone provide a link to any more details?

Experiences of the meeting from contributors and delegates would also be appreciated here, as well as ways to improve!

Some of the questions in the RSE international survey will need to be adapted for Australia. The questions are here

update points to the correct git branch now

There was feedback recently around people working on CWL. I think the time is right to have a chat around this at a National level. Can we make CWL a viable option for RSEs?

So far the people I know who have registered interest are:

• Paul Hancock from Curtin, WA - Astronomy
• Anthony Truskinger from QUT, QLD - Ecology
• Marc Marenda from UoM, VIC - Veterinary Science
• Pasi Korhonen from UoM, VIC - Veterinary Science

Please add your name, organisation and domain if you are interested and let's see if we can't arrange a time to meetup and discuss.

Hi folks,

I'd be really keen to help build up a community of RSEs in Australia. What would be the best way to get involved?

Nick

P.S. I'm an academic, based in Melbourne, and spend (or try to spend) most of my research time writing software in R for statistics, ecology and public health research. I also do ad-hoc training, system administration and events organisation, and review software papers in an ecology journal.

This is part of the Deliverables for 2019 (Draft) #51

I have a poll that you can fill out to decide what the opening talk will be. You can access it here:
https://poll.ly/#/LDZ4DAwd/LBNxpXQ5

Second talk could be Manodeep discussing the results of the latest RSE survey (international and Oz)

Third talk would be around our Manifesto and deliverables for 2019.

Happy to change this up based on feedback.

The RSE workshop proposal
The RSE BoF proposal

https://sinews.siam.org/Details-Page/research-software-engineer-a-new-career-track

Yeah - I'm definitely not one.

Action item 2 from:
#2

Provide a centralised place of position descriptions to help describe what RSEs do.
2.1 Sam to get AeRO collation if it exists, same for CSIRO
2.2 Suggested to capture the results of a "Explain what you do in one sentence" exercise in one place
2.3 Manodeep to get the UK PD that came about from their work
2.4 To also provide performance reporting and KPIs

2pm Melbourne time 24th July 2018

Agenda:

• Rowland is leaving ARDC on the 27th of July. Mingfang will be helping out with the community in his place. Issue here #28
• Discussion of other things needed for Victorian Face to Face meeting (eg. Zoom for external participants)
• Suggest a welcoming person whose job it is to chase up questions from the community (eg. from Kerensa and Bill via github issues)
• Look at engaging the community around a CWL subcommitee/group #27
• eResearch Australasia pre-conference workshop has been approved.

Hi,

I am a PhD student at UNSW Canberra. I am somewhat involved in FOSS mostly using Julia and I am interested in this whole RSE movement. So I wonder if and how I can be part of it and more importantly how it can benefit from me and how I can benefit from it. In the long run, I do consider a possible career path as a Julia RSE so I can see the benefit of RSEs getting more recognition and becoming an integral part of the research process at universities. I was introduced to RSEs through this JuliaCon talk on Youtube and I believe more of these talks are necessary to raise awareness in Australian universities of the importance and success stories of RSEs.

I believe one main part of the problem here is that a number of professors only believe in the value of papers and research contribution, not so much in the value of realizing those research contributions in the form of useful software, paving the road for more research using those software. These days there seems to be more journals like the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS) and Advances in Engineering in Software which seem to bridge this gap between traditional research and software contributions, but I feel more awareness is necessary to let university admins in on this trend through the sharing of success stories and why it is important. In particular, in the Julia community some of the best written packages are written by researchers and PhD students. In fact, the whole of Julia started as the PhD project of Jeff Bezanson and some of his mates. So the convergence of research and research software is very evident in the Julia community which is awesome.

I may be thinking bigger than I can do at this point since I am a mostly powerless (policy-wise) PhD student now who contributes to FOSS, but I would love to see an awareness talk delivered at my university where I can show my support. Having a Discourse page can also help connect and bring people together. I find the Julia Discourse page for instance a great place to hang out. Please let me know if and how I can be involved. Being a student, I am low on funds so my commuting power is limited but I can help arrange or coordinate local talks and meetups. I think it would help to have some representatives from every university that can get some promotion message through the university's newsletters and media channels so I don't mind being that guy at my campus. I am not sure how people here will receive this RSE trend, but I am, as I am sure we all are, hoping for the best.

Cheers,
Mohamed

Hi All,

The monthly meeting is on at 2pm AEDST on Tuesday the 26th of February. It is held on the fourth Tuesday of the month.

The Zoom meeting is: https://monash.zoom.us/j/691412731

Here is a draft agenda - please add comments if there are other things you would like to talk about (time permitting):

Acknowledgement (from UniMelb): I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation as the custodians of the land on which I work, live, and raise my family. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and future.

1. Feb 8 Tech Talk feedback
2. Discussion on ‘Nominating for committee positions: requirements and process’. RSE-AUNZ-Poll-Committee-Positions.pdf
3. Deliverables for 2019 #51 (comment)
4. C3DIS expressions of interest are now open http://www.c3dis.com/presentations
5. Auda Eltahla - Microsoft Research Engagement Manager
6. Request from Jonah of the Carpentries + highlighting the training aspect of RSEs
7. Web and email community engagement

Hi All,
In the Face to Face Perth meeting, I was struck by how much the RSE community provided informal skills development.

I have been putting together an unofficial document around skills training in eResearch and thought that maybe it would be of interest to the RSE community.

Document is here -you should all have commenting rights:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nQXuFPThncqng_1JRWOs3RhsQl1yRXbT_CqTMcf_p6o/edit

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Please note that it's not very refined, but that's OK, it's just to try and gather information from the community.

Hi,

I couldn't find a thread for new members to introduce themselves, so I created it.

I came across this community the other day. It feels good to know there are other people like me in the world. I felt I really belong here.

I have been working for almost 5 years as software engineer at unimelb supporting research and I can very much relate to all the issues this community is raising.

Are you guys still having monthly meetings? I can see last monthly meeting was end of last year.

Regards

Zaher.

We should start to put together a website for the RSE-AU. I think the RSE UK is putting together an international RSE page (http://researchsoftware.org/)

Alys Brett said that we should formally get in touch with Simon Hettrick of SSI for logos and branding for our page but should be straight-forward.

Deadline to finalize is end of the week. Survey url is deliberately not listed here.

1. Review the RSE workshop and BoF at the 2018 eRA conference.
2. Sam looks for some feedback / suggestions on how to do things better next time (eRA19/C3DIS) and how AeRO can support the RSE community going forward

Here is the minutes from the RSE workshp.

Provide a centralised place to collect use cases, especially around academics getting credit, or institutions who are doing it well. eg Journal of Open Source Software

Action item 3 from:
#2

Manodeep, Rowland, Ming, Kathryn B, Gerry held a planning meeting today.

Meeting notes include draft agenda and action items.

AeRO Forum

The forum has quite a broad scope, so what questions would you like raised at the forum?

For instance:

• Where do Research Software Engineeers sit within the broad scope of the eResearch Workforce?

Belinda mentioned that we need an RSE Au/NZ sticker for advertising, and I couldn't agree more!

Anyone feeling artistic?

Also, do people prefer hex or non-standard shaped stickers?