DIRECT Framework Development: End-of Project Highlights!
Adrian D’Alessandro, Project PI and Senior Research Software Engineer at Imperial College London, shares the progress and impact of his recently completed DisCouRSE-funded project. The project has helped take the DIRECT web app to the next stage, strengthening its infrastructure and supporting the development of DIRECT Framework v2.0.0.
What is DIRECT?
The DIRECT framework is a framework of skills and competencies for dRTPs which helps to classify and describe the wide range of technical and non-technical skills used across digital research roles. These roles include researchers, research software engineers (RSEs), data specialists, group leads, principal investigators (PIs), archivists, bioinformaticians, and many more. Using DIRECT provides a shared language for recognising expertise, planning training, and mapping career pathways supporting individuals in charting their professional growth while helping organisations to build stronger, more inclusive teams.
Updating the DIRECT Web App
The DIRECT web app provides an accessible way to read through the framework and understand the skills, competencies, and categories it contains. It also provides users with a way to generate and visualise their own skill profiles in a skills wheel. The aim of the 8 week project was to update the webapp so that it would be ready for v2.0.0 of the DIRECT Framework. This new version included additional tools, methodologies, programming languages and learning resources that link with updated skills and competencies.
Enabling Consistent Development
Up until now the web app has been developed by volunteers based at different institutions resulting in inconsistent progress and project management. Receiving funding through DisCouRSE allowed for dedicated professional time from the Imperial RSE Team to develop the web app, adding to the existing volunteer effort. This resulted in a more robust infrastructure set-up, a thorough database, a better long-term roadmap, and improved sustainability of the web app. The project was managed by the Imperial RSE team using an agile approach including 2-week sprint cycles, with a review meeting involving the community contributors and leadership committee of the DIRECT Framework every two weeks.
Available Now!
The new version of the web app is now live and released on Zenodo. The aim is for the app to be adopted by university Research Software Engineering (RSE) groups looking to use it as part of the annual review process for staff development.
“This project made a huge amount of progress to take the app from an MVP to something that is mature enough to be useful for dRTPs. The web app is by no means complete, but locking down the structure of the framework has made it possible to develop more features in future projects that will really make DIRECT a fantastic resource.”
Adrian D’Alessandro, Project PI, Senior Research Software Engineer, Imperial College London.