Merge branch 'main' into 20-staff-success-story-msc-scientific-computing-berlin

Author: dokempf

group_composition_plot/group_composition_plot.pdf

@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ def read_data(filename):
 fig.legend(activities, title="Activities", loc="center right", bbox_to_anchor=(1.1, 0.5), fontsize=20)
 
 
-fig.savefig("group_composition_plot.png", dpi=300, bbox_inches='tight')
+fig.savefig("group_composition_plot.pdf", bbox_inches='tight')
 # # Adjust layout
 # plt.tight_layout()
 # plt.show()

group_composition_plot/plot.py

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 \documentclass{article}
 \usepackage[]{biblatex}
+\usepackage{graphicx}
 \usepackage{hyperref}
 \usepackage{xspace}
 
@@ -289,7 +290,7 @@ \subsection{Development Services}
 
 While all of the above development services can be flexibly performed either at the RSE hub or its spokes, there are advantages of having a hub in the process:
 It allows building up highly specialized technical expertise with a long term perspective and reuse it across the entire institution.
-Examples of topics that would benefit from such expertise pooling are \eg mobile app development (University of Manchester: https://research-it.manchester.ac.uk/services/mobile-development-service-mds/ - use as \#SuccessStory?) and UI/UX development.
+Examples of topics that would benefit from such expertise pooling are \eg mobile app development and UI/UX development.
 
 RSE departments that offer development services at all scales have proven to be a success story at many research institutions and have rapidly grown in size due to the influx of third party funding.
 Notable examples are \eg Manchester [REF], Notre-Dame [REF], STANFORD, Princeton~\autocite{Cosden2022}.
@@ -298,6 +299,14 @@ \subsection{Development Services}
 Founded in January 2017, the Research Computing department of Princeton University has experienced a tremendous growth from the initial two FTEs to a total of 18 FTEs in the span of five years~\autocite{Cosden2022}.
 This growth is based on a continuous influx of new funded projects once successful projects showcase the additional value of RSE services to researchers.
 
+[Success Story]
+The University of Manchester Software and Data Science group has successfully established specialized development services within their institution:
+The "Mobile Development Service" \autocite{manchester_mobile} team consists of RSEs that focus solely on developing and deploying mobile apps.
+Without a central RSE department to anchor such specialized expertise, it would probably be infeasible to establish such a service.
+Also, having this expertise centralized allows for synergies in the deployment procedure for mobile apps:
+The RSE department can create institutional accounts with the app stores and manage the time consuming deployment process including hard-to-setup procedures like code signing.
+Besides the technical benefits of this central deployment procedure, the institution will also benefit from the increased visibility and potentially be able to build a brand with its technological output.
+
 \subsection{Teaching Services}
 
 A central RSE department can provide or organize training for researchers and decentralized RSEs in an institution.
@@ -394,8 +403,29 @@ \subsection{RSE Outreach}
 \section{Realization Strategy}
 
 In the following, we propose a realization strategy for a central institutional RSE department.
-We describe a possible transition pathway, starting from existing structures (described below) that have grown in research alliances such as collaborative research centers or clusters of excellence,
-or also in research departments of an institution.
+We describe a possible transition pathway, starting from existing structures (described below) that have grown in research alliances such as collaborative research centers or clusters of excellence, or also in research departments of an institution.
+
+\subsection{Service Portfolio and existing implementations}
+
+A number of successful installations of RSE departments already exist in Germany and many more exist in other countries, especially the UK and the US.
+In order to understand the service portfolio of these existing RSE departments, we conducted a survey that received a total of twelve responses from Germany, the UK and the US.
+We asked departments for the composition of their service portfolio - the results are shown in figure~\ref{fig:survey}.
+
+\begin{figure}
+\centering
+\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{./group_composition_plot/group_composition_plot.pdf}
+\caption{National and international examples of RSE departments and their service portfolio: Heidelberg and Princeton offer development services, whereas Jena and Reading focus mostly on teaching and consultation services.}
+\end{figure}
+
+From the gathered data and the additional free text information of the participants we conclude that the service components that we have identified in section~\ref{sec:vision} are indeed relevant for existing RSE departments.
+Additionally, we see a large diversity in the weighting of these components, which is to be expected given the different environments of the RSE departments.
+Within this diverse data, we identified two rather different archetypes of RSE departments: Those that offer development services and those that do not.
+The departments offering such services would typically invest a lot of their resources into this component, where as others put a much larger emphasis on teaching and consultation services.
+We should note however, that our survey did not collect information about the size of the department.
+It is likely that the departments offering development services are also larger in size, and that their total resource commitment to teaching and consultation services is similar to that of the departments that do not offer development services.
+
+When setting up a new RSE department, it is important to find the best service portfolio composition for the local environment.
+This depends on the demand by scientists at the institution, existing structures and the availability of funding.
 
 \subsection{Network of RSEs}
 

paper.tex

@@ -32,9 +32,14 @@ @misc{fair_data_maturity_model_working_group_2020
   url          = {https://doi.org/10.15497/rda00050}
 }
 
+@online{manchester_mobile,
+  title={Mobile Development Service (MDS)},
+  url={https://research-it.manchester.ac.uk/services/mobile-development-service-mds/}
+}
+
 @Online{learnandteachlearn,
   author  = {{The teachingRSE project}},
   title   = {Learn research software engineering},
   url     = {https://de-rse.org/learn-and-teach/learn},
   urldate = {2024-02-24},
-}
+}