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Using xml schema and xslt in R

This week an update for xml2 and a new xslt package have appeared on CRAN. A full announcement for xml2 version 1.1 will appear on the rstudio blog. This post explains xml validation (via xsd schema) and xml transformation (via xslt stylesheets) which have been added in this release. XML schemas and stylesheets are not exactly new; both xslt 1.1 (2001) and xsd 1.0 (2004) have been available in browsers for over a decade....

A guide to sustainability models for research software projects

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 to sustain itself? (We define sustainability as the capacity to endure. Software is sustainable if it will continue to be available in the future, on new platforms, and meeting new needs. [This is from slide 23 of http://www....

Our Community Manager Selected for AAAS Community Engagement Fellowship Program

Next week I’ll be in Washington DC to meet my peers in research community management as part of the inaugural class of the AAAS Community Engagement Fellowship Program! The program, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, has a mission to improve community building and collaboration in scientific organizations and research collaborations by providing a year of training and support to a cohort of scientific community managers. The Fellowship will begin in January 2017 when we 17 Fellows gather for a week-long training course with leaders in the field at AAAS headquarters....

Highlights and Resources from Community Call v12: How do I create a code of conduct for my event/lab/codebase?

Our Community Call on December 15th covered a big topic in tech communities: “How do I create a code of conduct for my event/lab/codebase?”. Here, we cover some of the key themes and considerations that arose from the discussion and point to curated resources and examples to follow when developing a code of conduct (CoC) for your community. Three guest speakers shared different perspectives. Dr Pauline Barmby talked about the process and lessons learned as Data Carpentry and Software Carpentry recently updated their CoC; Ms Safia Abdalla talked about “Codes of conduct for open source: the stuff no one tells you”; and Dr Titus Brown talked about his lab CoC....

Announcing our first fellowship awarded to Dr. Nick Golding

rOpenSci’s overarching mission is to promote a culture of transparent, open, and reproducible research across various scientific communities. All of our activities are geared towards lowering barriers to participation, and building a community of practitioners around the world. In addition to developing and maintaining a large suite of open source tools for data science, we actively support the research community with expert review on research software development, community calls, and hosting annual unconferences around the world....

Working together to push science forward

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