Publish your software! A walkthrough of JOSS (Journal of Open Source Software) submission to publication

Helping researchers make better software is the main goal of the Research Software Engineer and it can take multiple forms, from providing training and advice to creating a complete research software. Unfortunately, while it is clear that software has become a predominant part of the scientific process, as found out by different surveys [1,2], the true impact of the RSE is sometimes hard to evidence. This lack of evidence is in part because purely scientific publications tend to leave little place for the software part of the research process while favouring the scientific results themselves. In 2016, the Journal of Open Source Software [JOSS] was created to tackle this issue. JOSS is a peer reviewed academic journal created with the objective of publishing papers about the research software themselves, giving the RSE world a perfect route for impact. Since its creation, JOSS has published more than 2400 papers in multiple scientific domains supporting works on complex modelling problems, research experiments and instruments, software libraries, etc... In this walkthrough, we give an overview of the types of submissions published in JOSS and demonstrate the full life-cycle of the JOSS process, from the submission of the software and paper, to the review process and the final publication. We will explain both sides of the coin: the submitter and reviewer's point of views. [1]: Hettrick, S., et al, It's impossible to conduct research without software, say 7 out of 10 UK researchers. https://www.software.ac.uk/blog/2016-09-12-its-impossible-conduct-research-without-software-say-7-out-10-uk-researchers. [2]: https://stanford-rc.github.io/stanford-software-survey/2021/two-thousand-twenty/ A recording of this session is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5wp0q2GRLCk