I’ll be heading to Schloss Dahstuhl in June for a Perspectives Workshop on Engineering Academic Software. Questions the workshop will seek to address include:

• How is academic software different from other software? What are its most pressing dimensions of quality?
• Is the software we use and produce in an academic context sustainable? How can we ensure that the software continues to evolve and offer value after serving its initial purpose?
• How can we adapt software engineering methods for the unique academic context without losing quality?
• How can we balance domain knowledge and expertise with software engineering knowledge and expertise in an academic research team?
• Do quality aspects of academic software apply to open data as well? How can well-engineered academic software together with open data make science more reproducible?

I look forward to tackling these and other questions with the other participants, and thank Carole Goble, James Howison, Claude Kirchner, and Oscar M. Nierstrasz for organizing the workshop.