Defining, Measuring, and Enhancing Sustainability in Scientific Software: Insights from the Center for Open-Source Research Software Advancement (CORSA)

The sustainability of scientific software is crucial for advancing research. In the complex world of scientific software development, it is essential to understand the diverse factors that influence sustainability. From the health of the software community to the robustness of engineering practices, each element plays a pivotal role in the long-term viability of a project. This talk, presented by the Center for Open-Source Research Software Stewardship and Advancement (CORSA), focuses on the diverse definitions of sustainability within the scientific software community, its attributes, and the metrics used to measure and enhance it. The Center for Open-Source Research Software Stewardship and Advancement (CORSA), a new community of practice, aims to address the long-term sustainability of scientific and research software by fostering collaboration among stakeholders, facilitating partnerships with open-source foundations, and educating the community regarding approaches to the stewardship and advancement of open-source software. CORSA is part of a larger initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) called the Next Generation Scientific Software Technologies (NGSST) project, which includes stakeholders from a broad cross-section of the scientific computing and research software community. In this talk, we will provide a brief history of the NGSST project and the objectives of DOE to create sustainability pathways for open-source scientific software. We will then discuss the key issues that CORSA plans to address to facilitate scientific software's long-term stewardship. These include the development of metrics and metric models that help projects assess and understand their position in the landscape of sustainability efforts. The talk will draw on information gathered from previous CORSA workshops and existing literature and research into this topic, including the types of sustainability metrics identified as crucial by the community. In particular, we will explore: Definitions of Sustainability: Understand the various ways the community defines sustainability in the context of scientific software. Attributes of Sustainability: Identify the key attributes that the community values, such as community health, engineering practices, and funding stability. Metrics for Measuring Sustainability: Discuss the different metrics and models that help projects assess their sustainability, including how these metrics are developed and applied. Capturing and Using Metrics: Explore methods for capturing these metrics and practical strategies for using them to improve sustainability. Our goal is to create a community of practice where we can collaborate to curate, share, and disseminate information and guidance that will strengthen and sustain the research and scientific software community in the long term.