A growing community of scientists from a variety of disciplines is moving the norms of scientific research toward open practices. Supporters of open science hope to increase the quality and efficiency of research by enabling the widespread sharing of datasets, research software source code, publications, and other processes and products of research.

We are pleased to welcome our Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Dan Sholler. Dan is an expert in qualitative research (yes, you read that correctly) and studies digital infrastructure creation, growth, and maintenance efforts. Through this research interest, he was drawn to the open science community and its ongoing development of tools and communities to support sustainable, reproducible, high-quality research.

A research project often starts with a bright idea and an initial commitment of volunteer time, or perhaps,a fixed term grant. But what happens after that initial activity? How can the project continue tosustain itself? (We define sustainability as the capacity to endure.

I’m happy to announce that I’ve started a project with rOpenSciunder their recent award from the Helmsley Foundation. My work with rOpenSci will focus on sustainability of the project itself. Sustainability can be defined as having theresources to do the necessary work to continue and grow rOpenSci. This is one of the most difficult challenges forrOpenSci and for many other research software projects.