Software must be recognised as an important output of scholarly research

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the importance of recognizing software as a primary research output, discussing its roles, challenges in citation and review, and the need for evolving publication models to better accommodate software in scholarly communication.

Contribution

It advocates for formal recognition of software as a research output and analyzes the challenges and ongoing efforts to integrate software into scholarly publishing.

Findings

Software is central to modern research methods.

Current publication models inadequately recognize software outputs.

Emerging initiatives aim to improve software citation and review processes.

Abstract

Software now lies at the heart of scholarly research. Here we argue that as well as being important from a methodological perspective, software should, in many instances, be recognised as an output of research, equivalent to an academic paper. The article discusses the different roles that software may play in research and highlights the relationship between software and research sustainability and reproducibility. It describes the challenges associated with the processes of citing and reviewing software, which differ from those used for papers. We conclude that whilst software outputs do not necessarily fit comfortably within the current publication model, there is a great deal of positive work underway that is likely to make an impact in addressing this.