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Contribution to Book
HydroShare – A Case Study of the Application of Modern Software Engineering to a Large Distributed Federally-Funded Scientific Software Development Project
Software Engineering for Science
  • Ray Idaszak
  • David G. Tarboton, Utah State University
  • Hong Yi
  • Laura Christopherson
  • Michael J. Stealey
  • Brian Miles
  • Pabitra Dash, Utah State University
  • Alva Couch
  • Calvin Spealman
  • Jeffery S. Horsburgh, Utah State University
  • Daniel P. Ames
Document Type
Contribution to Book
Editor
J. Carver, N. P. Hong, G. K. Thiruvathukal
Publisher
Chapman and Hall/CRC
Publication Date
10-20-2016
Abstract

HydroShare is an online collaborative system under development to support the open sharing of hydrologic data, analytical tools, and computer models. With HydroShare, scientists can easily discover, access, and analyze hydrologic data and thereby enhance the production and reproducibility of hydrologic scientific results. HydroShare also takes advantage of emerging social media functionality to enable users to enhance information about and collaboration around hydrologic data and models. HydroShare is being developed by an interdisciplinary collaborative team of domain scientists, university software developers, and professional software engineers from ten institutions located across the United States. While the combination of non–co-located, diverse stakeholders presents communication and management challenges, the interdisciplinary nature of the team is integral to the project’s goal of improving scientific software development and capabilities in academia. This chapter describes the challenges faced and lessons learned with the development of HydroShare, as well as the approach to software development that the HydroShare team adopted on the basis of the lessons learned. The chapter closes with recommendations for the application of modern software engineering techniques to large, collaborative, scientific software development projects, similar to the National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded HydroShare, in order to promote the successful application of the approach described herein by other teams for other projects.

Citation Information
Idaszak, R., D. G. Tarboton, H. Yi, L. Christopherson, M. J. Stealey, B. Miles, P. Dash, A. Couch, C. Spealman, D. P. Ames and J. S. Horsburgh, (2017), "HydroShare - A case study of the application of modern software engineering to a large distributed federally-funded scientific software development project," Chapter 10 in Software Engineering for Science, Edited by J. Carver, N. P. C. Hong and G. K. Thiruvathukal, Taylor&Francis CRC Press, p.217-233.