We were excited to attend the annual international Open Repositories (OR) Conference this year as representatives of the SoFAIR Project.
The OR Conference is an important event in the field of open knowledge, open source, and digital preservation. It brings together librarians, developers, repository managers, and others who are focused on making scholarly outputs accessible and preserving them for the future. The conference offers a mix of learning about new technologies, sharing techniques, and connecting with others facing similar challenges. This informal, collaborative atmosphere makes OR a key event for anyone managing digital resources and wanting to stay informed on repository trends.
During the conference, Professor Knoth introduced Open University’s role as coordinator of the SoFAIR project (‘Making Software FAIR: A Machine-Assisted Workflow for the Research Software Lifecycle’) and summarised the aims of our two-year CHIST-ERA-funded initiative. He described procedures for streamlining and semi-automating the research software management process. He also focused on the project’s goals of streamlining the process of identifying, describing, recording and archiving software to make it more FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) for the research community.
Professor Knoth also attended the CHIST-ERA Projects Seminar, where he presented the current results of the SoFAIR Project. This year, the Projects Seminar was held in-person on a cruise from Helsinki, Finland to Stockholm, Sweden, providing a unique setting for discussions and presentations about ongoing CHIST-ERA projects.
