Important Dates:
Submissions Due: 9 October 2022
Estimated Publication: March/April 2023
Research software engineers (RSEs) are essential for developing high-quality research software critical to advancing the frontiers of scientific discovery, in particular within a complex landscape integrating high-performance computing (HPC), data science, machine learning and complex workflows on advanced technology computing systems. People in the RSE role, whether they have the title of RSE or something else (e.g. postdocs, computational scientist, research staff, and so forth), develop, maintain and contribute to research software and come from a broad spectrum of scientific domains across academia, national laboratories and industry. The past five years have seen a growing movement toward defining, recognizing, and growing communities around the formalized role of the RSE, in large part from the overwhelming need for more RSEs. However, there are still significant obstacles in attracting, developing, and retaining the next generation of RSEs. These obstacles include both technical as well as social and cultural factors. Continuing to move the community forward, requires an honest and introspective analysis from a wide variety of people who have experiences to share.
The goal of this special issue of CiSE is to explore the future of research software engineers in the United States, with emphasis on the cultural, educational, and professional paradigm shifts that need to occur.
Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
- The current and future drivers for the growing number of RSEs
- The activities of RSE organizations to develop, connect, and grow the community
- The best practices for hiring, retaining and promoting RSEs
- The changes needed to existing cultural, educational and professional structures to foster the growth of RSEs in number and breadth of expertise
- Case studies, with both positive and negative experience, and position papers
- Challenge problems facing the future of RSEs
We strongly encourage submissions that include multimedia, data, and community content, which will be featured online. If your submission includes such materials, please let the special issue editors know at cise-rse@computer.org.
Background
Published by the IEEE Computer Society, Computing in Science & Engineering magazine features the latest computational science and engineering research in an accessible format, along with departments covering news and analysis, CSE in education, and emerging technologies.
Submission Guidelines
Before submitting, we encourage authors to send a 250-word abstract at cise-rse@computer.org so that the special issue editors can evaluate whether your idea fits within the scope of this special issue.
When writing your article, please refer to the CiSE-specific author guidelines and the general author guidelines. Authors are asked to submit high-quality original work that has neither appeared in nor is under consideration by other journals. All submissions will be peer-reviewed following standard journal practices. Manuscripts based on previously published conference papers must be extended substantially to include at least 30 percent new material. Please submit electronically through the CiSE ScholarOne Manuscripts submission site, selecting this track option and including complete contact information for all authors. If you have any questions about submitting your article in ScholarOne Manuscripts, contact the peer-review coordinator at cise@computer.org.
Questions?
For more information contact the editors at cise-rse@computer.org.
Guest Editors:
- Jeffrey Carver
- Hai Ah Nam
- Irina Tezaur
- Nasir Eisty
