Category Archives: poster

The ASCL at AAS 243: A Special Session and posters!

The ASCL is at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), which is taking place in the major food destination New Orleans. In addition to tracking down beignets and bread pudding, ASCL team members have shared the stage with others in a Special Session and have presented iPosters. The Special Session was held on Monday afternoon; iPosters were presented on Monday and Tuesday evenings.

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Special Session: Into the Future: Building on 25 Years of Community Organization in Astro Software Development

Abstract: Over the past 25 years, astronomy has seen many changes involving research software development. These include improved transparency, improved software availability, and changes in journal policies. Formal recognition of community-based software development has increased through targeted funding, the establishment of new journals specifically focused on software, and code citation.

Changes in astro software development include the rise of open social coding sites such as GitHub and GitLab, the establishment and growth of conferences devoted to or including research software (such as ADASS, FORCE11, and the Research Data Alliance), and community-based training in software development (for example, The Carpentries and SciCoder) and exploration (for example, .dotastro and hack days) events.

This Special Session will look back at the community-driven work that has enabled some of these changes and look forward to future horizons for the software community in astronomy. Leaders of some of these community efforts will serve on an expert panel and will share their perspectives, after which the floor will be open for discussion with participants.

Speakers
Peter Teuben, University of Maryland, College Park:  Introduction and Overview
Demitri Muna, Chief Science Data Office, NASA HQ: Software Training for Research Scientists: SciCoder and Other Efforts
Aarya Patil, Max Planck Institute for Astronomy: Building the AstroPy Community
Robert Nemiroff, Michigan Technological University: How and Why the Astrophysics Source Code Library Was Formed
Kimberly DuPrie, Space Telescope Science Institute: Lessons from Industry

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iPoster: Using the Astrophysics Source Code Library in the classroom
Alice Allen, Astrophysics Source Code Library; Kimberly DuPrie, Space Telescope Science Institute; Peter Teuben, University of Maryland, College Park; Robert Nemiroff, Michigan Technological University

Abstract: The Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL, ascl.net) is an online registry of source codes used in refereed astrophysics research. It currently lists over 3,300 codes and covers all aspects of computational astrophysics, and all of its public metadata about software can be downloaded. This presentation covers possible ways the ASCL can be used by educators and their graduate students. The ASCL serves as a discovery tool for codes that can be used for one’s own research. Graduate students can also investigate existing codes to see how common astronomical problems are approached numerically in practice, and use these codes as benchmarks for their own solutions to these problems. Further, they can deepen their knowledge of software practices and techniques through examination of others’ codes, and can use the ASCL’s data set for research on computational methods in astrophysics.

Screenshot of Using the Astrophysics Source Code Library in the Classroom iPoster

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iPoster: ASCL, ADS, and EMAC: Improving the visibility and citability of exoplanet research software
Alice Allen, Astrophysics Source Code Library; Alberto Accomazzi, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian; Joe Renaud, UMD College Park / NASA Goddard.

Abstract: The Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL, ascl.net) is a free online registry for source codes of interest to astronomers, astrophysicists, and planetary scientists. It lists, and in some cases houses, software used in research that has appeared in, or been submitted to, peer-reviewed publications. It now has over 3300 software entries and is indexed by ADS and Clarivate’s Web of Science. In 2020, NASA created the Exoplanet Modeling and Analysis Center (EMAC, emac.gsfc.nasa.gov). Housed at the Goddard Space Flight Center, EMAC serves, in part, as a catalog and repository for exoplanet research resources. EMAC currently has 223 entries, 77% of which are for downloadable software. This presentation will cover the collaborative work the ASCL is doing with EMAC and with NASA’s Astrophysics Data System (ADS) to increase the discoverability and citability of EMAC’s software entries and to strengthen the ASCL’s and ADS’s ability to serve the planetary science community.

Screenshot of ASCL, ADS and EMAC: Improving the visibility and citability of exoplanet research software iPoster

ASCL poster on software citation at AAS 241

All posters at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society were iPosters: displayed on a screen instead of printed on paper or fabric. The ASCL’s iPoster is available for viewing in the iPoster Gallery; the image below is a static screenshot.

Why others might not be citing your astronomy software

Screenshot of ASCL iPoster at AAS 241

Your codes can themselves be cited, and you can choose your preferred citation method! So why aren’t people citing your code? Come find out, and also learn what five steps you can take to improve citation of the software you write.

In the past decade, software citation has accelerated in astrophysics, resulting in the field now having multiple ways to cite computational methods. Adding software metadata files, such as a CITATION.cff or a codemeta.json file, to the root directory of a GitHub repo (or other code storage site) lets others know how they should cite that software. Yet most software authors do not specify how they would like their code to be cited, while others specify a citation method that is not easily tracked (or tracked at all) by most indexers. In 2020, the Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL, ascl.net) sent authors of 135 codes software metadata files (CITATION.cff and codemeta.json), tailored to each computational method, and suggested that one of these files be edited as needed and included on their code site. In early 2021, we examined the code sites for these 135 entries and found that only 41% of these sites had citation information in any form available. In mid-2021, GitHub announced the integration of CITATION.cff into its service, making it easier to add this metadata file to one’s repo. Even so, as of January, 2023, 54% of the codes registered in the ASCL do not specify how to cite use of the software. The lack of citation information creates an obstacle for article authors to provide credit to software creators, thus hindering citation of and recognition for computational contributions to research and for the scientists who develop and maintain software.

#AAS241

ASCL poster on software citation at ADASS XXXII


Are others using software you’ve written in their research and citing it as you want it to be cited? If not, this poster will help! Software can be cited in different ways, some good, and some not good at all for tracking and counting citations in indexers such as ADS and Google Scholar. Generally, indexers need to match citations to resources, such as journal articles, they ingest. There are several reasons why your code might not be cited well (in a trackable/countable way). One common reason is the lack of clear and explicit instructions on a code’s download site. Most astro code sites don’t list a preferred citation method! Make it easy for people to cite your software by listing a (good! trackable!) preferred citation method where others can easily find it. Creating a standard software metadata file, such as a CITATION.cff or codemeta.json, and adding it to the root of your code repo is easy to do with the ASCL’s metadata file creation overlay (see handout below), and will help out anyone wanting to give you credit for your computational method, whether it’s a huge carefully-written and tested package, or a short quick-and-dirty-but-oh-so-useful code.

#ADASSXXXI

ASCL poster on SciCodes consortium at ADASS XXXI

Poster describing the SciCodes consortium and how it might be of interest to astronomers

The Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL ascl.net), started in 1999, is a free open registry of software used in refereed astronomy research. Over the past few years, it has spearheaded an effort to form a consortium of scientific software registries and repositories. In 2019 and 2020, ASCL contacted editors and maintainers of academic discipline and institutional software registries and repositories in math, biology, neuroscience, geophysics, remote sensing, and other fields to develop a list of best practices for research software registries and repositories. At the completion of that project, performed as a Task Force for a FORCE11 working group, members decided to form SciCodes as an ongoing consortium. This poster will cover the consortium’s work so far, what it is currently working on, what it hopes to achieve for making scientific research software more discoverable across disciplines, and how the consortium can benefit astronomers.

Download poster (PDF)

#ADASSXXXI

The ASCL at the 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society

It’s that time of year again, when astronomers’ hearts and wings turn to AAS for the winter AAS meeting. This year, however, the wings are virtual; like other conferences in this time of pandemic, the 237th meeting of the AAS is online. I’m very impressed with the online meeting space, which includes a conference center with different locations to visit, a virtual exhibit hall, an iPoster gallery, and many opportunities through Slack and thoughtfully-planned activities to enable and encourage interaction between attendees, exhibitors, and presenters, including the always great Open Mic event, a highlight of the winter meeting, on Wednesday evening.

Members of the ASCL are presenting two iPosters + (the “plus” is a short Zoom session about  the poster) and an oral presentation at this meeting.

On Monday, Siddha Mavuram, an UMD student hired to do development work for the ASCL for our NASA ADAP project, is doing an iPoster + presentation titled Come search the ASCL with our new API! I also have an iPoster + presentation on Monday called Life, the Universe and Everything… you ever wanted to know about the Astrophysics Source Code Library. Though our short talks, using our posters only as our visual aids, are on Monday, our posters are available all week.

On Tuesday, Peter Teuben is presenting results of our NASA ADAP project. Though Siddha is presenting part of the development work done for this project, Peter is sharing the overall results in his oral presentation Increasing the visibility of NASA astrophysics software through the ASCL, showing how this project has made it possible to search the ASCL and ADS for NASA software through the use of keywords and, on ADS, the doctype value software. You can see these results yourself on the ASCL and with an ADS search.

Because I very cleverly failed to realize that all the links I added to the slides for my iPoster wouldn’t work once I made those slides images (doh!), I provide a PDF of these slides for download below in which most, but alas not all, of the links work. Later this week, I’ll provide a full list of links in another post that will contain all of the resources and links the ASCL is presenting this week.

Slides for Peter’s oral presentation (PDF)

Slides for Alice’s ASCL iPoster slideshow (PDF)

Lightning talk at ADASS XXX: Making organizational software easier to find

The excellent ADASS XXX conference concluded yesterday. I missed meeting ADASS attendees face-to-face, but was delighted to spend time with them safely online, to learn about their projects and research, to talk about software and data, to share what the ASCL has been doing, and to meet old and new friends. The all-virtual conference was just about perfect; the technology set-up was excellent, providing opportunities to see sessions as they happened or at a later time on video, ask questions, comment on and discuss what was presented, and have one-on-one or small group video calls. The schedule was easy to keep track of, as one could subscribe to the schedule and get updates to it (mostly additions) immediately. Support was extremely responsive; an online Help Desk provided answers to queries almost immediately. There was even a conference photo!

Poster presenters were invited to record and upload a lightning talk — no more than three minutes — for their posters; two-minute lightning talks via Zoom were also arranged at the conference. The ASCL presented a poster on Making organizational software easier to find in ASCL and ADS; the hastily-put-together lightning talk presented at the conference for this poster is below.

ADASS attendee Simón Torres offered to download all the pre-recorded lightning talks and stream them during the conference, so a Poster Video Watching Party was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. The stream was great fun to watch! It was interesting, too, to see all the different ways people presented their lightning talks.

What a great conference this was! I look forward to next year’s!

ASCL poster on NASA software project at ADASS XXX


Software is the most used instrument in astronomy, and organizations such as NASA and the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Physics (HITS) fund, develop, and release research software. NASA, for example, has created sites such as code.nasa.gov and software.nasa.gov to share its software with the world, but how easy is it to see what NASA has? Until recently, searching NASA’s Astrophysics Data System (ADS) for NASA’s astronomy software has not been fruitful. Through its ADAP program, NASA has funded the Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL ascl.net) to improve the discoverability of these codes. Adding institutional tags to ASCL entries makes it easy to find this software not only in the ASCL but also in ADS and other services that index the ASCL. This poster presentation covers the changes the ASCL has made as a result of this funding and how you can use the results of this work to better find organizational software in ASCL and ADS.

Download poster (PDF)

ASCL API poster at ADASS XXX

Poster about ASCL API
We have developed an API for the Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL) that enhances the ability of users to conduct complex and automated queries on ASCL indexed codes. The API is public and allows anyone to programmatically search and filter the ASCL software database via an HTTP request. For example, the search https://ascl.net/api/search/?q=%22supernova%22&fl=credit returns a list of authors with ASCL-indexed codes involving supernovae in JSON format. We will demonstrate the API and show its use in answering a researcher’s questions regarding the growth and usage of both interpreted and compiled languages in the database, gaining a more nuanced understanding of trends in astrophysics software development. Our findings confirmed a piece of conventional wisdom: that Python is growing in market share, while low level programming languages like C and C++ remain very popular. Further documentation for the API is available at https://github.com/teuben/ascl-tools/tree/master/API.

Siddha Mavuram (UMD), Alice Allen (ASCL/UMD), Robert J. Nemiroff (MTU), Judy Schmidt (ASCL), Peter J. Teuben (UMD)

Download poster (PDF)

ASCL poster at AAS235


Abstract: Software citation is good for research transparency and reproducibility, and maybe, if you work it right, for your CV, too. You can get credit and recognition through citations for your code! This presentation highlights several powerful methods for increasing the probability that use of your research software will be cited, and cited correctly. The presentation covers how to create codemeta.json and CITATION.cff automagically from Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL ascl.net) entries, edit, and use these files, the value of including such files on your code site(s), and efforts underway in astronomy and other fields to improve software citation and credit.

Authors: A. Allen1,2, R. Nemiroff3, P. Ryan1, J. Schmidt1, P. Teuben2
1Astrophysics Source Code Library
2Astronomy Department, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
3Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI

Download (PDF)

The ASCL at AAS 235

The ASCL is participating in the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting that started yesterday in Honolulu, Hawai’i. We have two events, both on Sunday, January 5:

Best ways to let others know how to cite your research software
January 5; Poster 109.12
Software citation is good for research transparency and reproducibility, and maybe, if you work it right, for your CV, too. You can get credit and recognition through citations for your code! This presentation highlights several powerful methods for increasing the probability that use of your research software will be cited, and cited correctly. The presentation covers how to create codemeta.json and CITATION.cff automagically from Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL ascl.net) entries, edit, and use these files, the value of including such files on your code site(s), and efforts underway in astronomy and other fields to improve software citation and credit.

The Future and Future Governance of the Astrophysics Source Code Library
January 5, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM; HCC – Room 301B
Over the past ten years, the Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL, ascl.net) has grown from a small repository holding about 40 codes with hand-coded HTML pages maintained by one person to a resource with citable entries on over 2000 codes with a modern database structure that is user- and editor-friendly maintained by a small group of volunteers. With its 20th anniversary now behind it, it’s time to look at the resource and its governance and management. Does its current structure best serve the astro community? What changes would you like to see to its governance? We don’t know the answers to these and other questions! Please join us for an open discussion on the resource and what a new governance model for the ASCL might be.