ELIXIR tools platform: software best practices

ELIXIR  is an intergovernmental organization that brings together life science resources across Europe. These resources include databases, software tools, training materials, cloud storage, and supercomputers. One of the goals of ELIXIR is to coordinate these resources so that they form a single infrastructure. This infrastructure makes it easier for scientists to find and share data, exchange expertise, and agree on best practices. ELIXIR's activities are divided into the following five areas Data, Tools, Interoperability, Compute and Training known as “platforms”. The ELIXIR Tools Platform works to improve the discovery, quality and sustainability of software resources.Software Best Practices task of the Tools Platform aims to raise the quality and sustainability of research software by producing, adopting, promoting and measuring information standards and best practices applied to the software development life cycle. We have published four (4OSS) simple recommendations to encourage best practices in research software and the T op 10 metrics for life science software good practices .  The next step is to adopt, promote, and recognize these information standards and best practices, by developing comprehensive guidelines for software curation, and through workshops for training researchers and developers towards the adoption of software best practices and improvement of the usability of Tools Platform products. Additionally, a direct outcome of this task will be a software management plan template, connected to a concise description of the guidelines for open research software. Produce a white paper for the software development management plan for ELIXIR which can be consequently used to produce training material.