Roadmap

Warning

🚧 This section is still in active development and is subject to changes 🚧

This is a very high level roadmap and “wishlist” for products we aim or want to create and develop in the Seedcase Project. We do not include timelines or estimates for completion in this document (see note below). We have a more detailed and regularly updated roadmap that has some general timelines available on our Long-term Planning GitHub Board.

Important

Estimating a timeline can be extremely difficult, as it is dependent on multiple factors that often can’t be predicted or anticipated. Therefore, and from our experiences on timelines regularly needing to be updated, we avoid giving specific timelines in this document.

Product wishlist

This is a non-exhaustive list of products or outputs that we believe fill multiple strong needs within the research community, especially in order to remain relevant and competitive in the modern research landscape. We believe that we have the capability, expertise, motivation, and passion to complete these products. These products, we believe, will substantially improve how research will be done in the future. However, given our current timelines and resources, we can’t complete all of them but we list them here to show our visions and goals.

They are split into three main categories: software and software-related, technical documentation, and events. Technical documentation encompasses more than just usage guides or manuals for software, but also includes courses, opinion pieces, and outreach materials.

Products are listed in the order that we would like to work on and aim to complete them. Beside each product is a status, which is one of the following:

Status Description


Completed

 Products we have completed a minimally viable product (MVP) of. As products are never truly “done”, the “done” status simply indicates that the product is now in a usable state, but that we will continue improving and working on it.


In progress

 Products we are currently working on.


Planned

 Products we plan to work on and aim to complete within the current funding period (end of 2027).


Potential

 Products we are very interested in working on, but given the time and resources, may likely not get to within the current funding period (end of 2027).


Ongoing

 Products that we will continually work on and that don’t strictly have a defined endpoint for “done” (e.g. aren’t ever released or uploaded to an archive).

Technical documentation

Following the diátaxis method to structuring documentation, documentation is split up into four types: tutorials, how-to guides, reference, and explanation. A brief description of these types of documentation are expanded upon in the sections below. These technical documentation products reach MVP and done status when they are either:

  • Uploaded to an archive like Zenodo (to generate a DOI).
  • Taught to participants in a course setting.
  • Uploaded to a software archive (like PyPI) if they are within a software product’s repository and are executable (the code within runs).

Tutorials are learning-oriented documentation that includes multi-day courses, online tutorials, and learning shorts. These will be developed as open educational resources.

“Wishlist” of learning-type documentation products we are currently working on, will work on, or hope to work on.
Status Learning resource


In progress

 rostools/git4cats: 🐱 Git for Collaborative Teams: An introductory course on using Git and GitHub for team-based collaborative workflows and practices


Potential

 Course: Introduction to building research software using Python as a solo developer in research environments.


Potential

 Course: Iterative project management and development for effective collaboration and work.


Potential

 rostools/r-pkg-intro: Build research software using R as a solo developer in research environments.


Potential

 Course: Building research software using Python in a team setting.

How-to guides are goal-oriented documentation that helps the reader get something specific done. These include how-to guides, usage guides, and user manuals.

“Wishlist” of goal-type documentation products we are currently working on, will work on, or hope to work on.
Status Guides or manuals


In progress

 sprout.seedcase-project.org usage guide: Using and interacting with seedcase-sprout.


Planned

 Flower usage guide: Using and interacting with seedcase-flower.


Planned

 Propagate usage guide: Using and interacting with seedcase-propagate.


Planned

 Garden usage guide: Using and interacting with seedcase-garden.


Planned

 Improving the research software development lifecycle by integrating DevOps practices.


Planned

 A guided walkthrough: Team-based collaborative practices and workflows in a research environment.


Potential

 Sprout data extensions usage guide: Installing or creating extensions for seedcase-sprout.


Potential

 A guided walkthrough: Iterative and incremental project development and management in a research environment.


Potential

 Using DocOps workflows and infrastructure to reduce time between writing and dissemination.


Potential

 Building DataOps pipelines and infrastructure for improving research data quality and reduce time from collection to analysis.


Potential

 Integrating research operations in organizations to improve quality and speed up research.

Reference material is information-oriented documentation that are technical descriptions of how things work or why things are done a specific way. These include reference manuals, API documentation, and technical specifications, design documentation, as well as documentation for how we work together, decisions made, or any community contributing guidelines we have.

Important

Because of the nature of reference documentation, they don’t really have a “done” status nor do they have clearly defined “endpoints”, like uploading to an archive to generate a DOI. For these reasons, these products are all classified as “ongoing”.

“Wishlist” of informational-type documentation products we are currently working on, will work on, or hope to work on.
Status Information resource


Ongoing

 seedcase-project/design: Overall architectural design documentation for Seedcase software.


Ongoing

 seedcase-project/team: Documentation specific to the Seedcase team, like onboarding, common configuration files, and meeting agendas and minutes.


Ongoing

 seedcase-project/community: Content for community building, outreach, and contributing guidelines for the Seedcase Project.


Ongoing

 seedcase-project/seedcase-website: Main website for the Seedcase Project.


Ongoing

 seedcase-project/examples: Practical examples of how to use Seedcase software to structure datasets and prepare them to be used by others. All data is either fake, synthetically generated, or completely open.

Explanation material is understanding-oriented documentation that focuses on reflection and broadening knowledge or understanding. These include opinion pieces, explanations, theoretical or thought-provoking pieces, and outreach materials.

“Wishlist” of explanation-type documentation products we are currently working on, will work on, or hope to work on.
Status Deliverable


Ongoing

 seedcase-project/community: Sharing knowledge and skills learned from attending conferences and workshops in research software and data engineering or operational management


Ongoing

 seedcase-project/decisions: Archival records on the decisions made for tools or processes we use in the Seedcase Project.


Potential

 Research data engineering: What is it and why is it vital for modern research?


Potential

 Challenges and barriers: Workflows and digital infrastructure for building software in a team-based research environment.

Outreach and events

These are activities that would involve engaging with the research community, mainly through in-person seminars, symposiums, or other events.

Note

Given the expertise and resources needed for these types of “products” (e.g. hosting and coordinating people), we will likely not be able to work on these types of activities in the near future. However, we believe that they are important for bringing greater awareness to the research community about the various topics we work on and advocate for.

“Wishlist” of outreach event “products” we are currently working on, will work on, or hope to work on.
Status Deliverable


Potential

 Seminar series: Unmet needs for research data engineering and current challenges in implementation


Potential

 Symposium: Current state of data engineering in research environment

Collaborations and users

Once we have a minimum viable product for any of the software deliverables, we aim to test and deploy them in real-world projects. We have several potential projects lined up for this: