find.software: Foundations for INterdisciplinary Discovery of (Research) Software
Co-Applicant: |
Dr. Oliver Karras |
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My role: |
Principal investigator |
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Funding: |
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) |
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Duration: |
2026 – 2029 |
The goal of this project is to establish a community-driven, Wikidata-based knowledge graph that makes interdisciplinary research software easily discoverable, describable, and reusable. We aim to lower the barriers for both software users and developers by providing intuitive workflows and tools that integrate seamlessly with existing research practices. Three core concepts will be developed and evaluated:
- Map and prioritize existing software discovery pathways through personas and scenarios, then define a rubric and guidelines to avoid common pitfalls in software search and selection.
- Design and implement a unified data model and automated harvesting framework that aligns diverse metadata schemas (e.g., CodeMeta, Citation File Format) with Wikidata’s structure, enabling easy annotation and enrichment of software records.
- Foster a sustainable, open-governance community by adapting Wikibase/Scholia frontends, running workshops and ‘games with a purpose,’ and establishing roles and protocols for ongoing curation and stewardship.
By weaving together standardized metadata, automated integration pipelines and active community engagement, find.software will deliver an open, scalable infrastructure for software discovery. This approach ensures that researchers across disciplines can find, evaluate and contribute to research software without needing advanced expertise in metadata standards or semantic technologies, making software curation both affordable and enduring.