Roadmap

Warning

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

While the core deliverable of Seedcase is the software product described in the Design Docs website documentation, there are several deliverables that form this core product.

Because of the evolving nature of developing software, the software product is never “completed” as it continues to be improved on and updated. So here we define a deliverable for software as the first minimum viable product (or prototype). After the first release of a minimum viable product, the software product will continue to be tested and refined based on user feedback, identified bugs, and additional features.

Likewise, our documentation and training/education projects will also continue to be refined and updated. So we define a deliverable as the first time they are uploaded to an archive (like a software release) to create a DOI (digital object identifier).

Primary deliverables

Estimating the timeline for software development is very difficult, as it is dependent on multiple factors that often can’t be predicted, such as encountering difficult bugs in the code or in revising the implementation based on changing technical needs and resources. The timeline below is an approximation and may change as the project progresses.

Approximate timeline for completion of a minimum viable product (prototype).
Status Timeline Deliverable Description

Mid-to-end 2024 seedcase-project/seedcase-sprout Upload your research data to formally structure it for better, more reliable, and easier research.

Concurrent with Sprout Built-in to Sprout Authenticating users and managing permissions

Mid 2025 seedcase-flower Cataloging and browsing metadata on data in a Data Resource

Early 2026 seedcase-propogate Submitting request for accessing specific data from a Data Resource

End 2026 seedcase-garden Tend to projects using data from a Data Resource

While we want the software products to have a more tangible deliverable and timeline, we will be continually updating and refining related documentation. At some regular intervals, we plan on uploading the documents to an archive for generating DOIs and for greater dissemination.

List of documentation deliverables with approximate timelines for uploading to an archive for the first time.
Status Timeline Deliverable Description

End 2025 seedcase-project/decisions Archival records on many of the decisions made in the Seedcase Project

End 2025 seedcase-project/design Overall architectural design documentation for Seedcase software.

End 2026 seedcase-project/team Documentation specific to the Seedcase team, like onboarding, common configuration files, and meeting agendas and minutes.

Not relevant seedcase-project/community Content for community building, outreach, and contributing guidelines for the Seedcase Project

Not relevant seedcase-project/seedcase-website Main website for the Seedcase Project

TBD Usage guides General guides for using and interacting with Seedcase software

TBD Opinion paper Workflows and digital infrastructure for building software in a team-based research environment
List of training and education deliverables with approximate timelines
Status Timeline Deliverable Description

TBD Tutorial Installing and setting up Seedcase on a server so Data Resources can be created

TBD Tutorial Using Seedcase to create and manage a Data Resource

TBD Tutorial Requesting to start a data project for a Data Resource

Secondary deliverables

Secondary software deliverables with their approximate timeline for completion of a minimum viable product (prototype) for each.
Status Timeline Deliverable Description

TBD Sprout data processing plug-in Plugin/extension system for Seedcase Sprout processing or enriching data

TBD Theme customization extensions Plugin/extension system for theming of user interface elements of all Seedcase software
  • Knowledge and skills learned from attending conferences and workshops in research software and data engineering or operational management (via the Community)
List of secondary deliverables with approximate timelines for running the first workshop or course.
Status Timeline Deliverable Description

Mid-2025 rostools/r-pkg-intro An introduction course to building R Packages

Mid-2025 rostools/r-cubed-ise An course to do reproducible research in server environments with R

End 2025 rostools/cog-flow-intro ⚙️ Collaboration with Git and GitHub: A gentle introduction to a team-based collaborative workflow using Git and GitHub.

TBD Seminar series What is research data engineering?

TBD Workshop Data engineering in a research environment

Ongoing activities

Throughout the entire lifespan of this project, we will be assessing, reviewing, updating, and adding to these activities:

  • Security
  • General documentation
  • Refining the user interface
  • Testing and re-testing of the code

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 projects lined up for this:

We also have several projects that act as infrastructural support for the Seedcase Project, all of which are continually developed and are not designed to be deliverables:

  • seedcase-project/.github: Repository for the default community health files and development configuration files for the Seedcase Project GitHub organisation.
  • seedcase-project/data: Repository to store data we use for testing and demo purposes. All data is either fake, synthetically generated, or completely open.
  • seedcase-project/seedcase-theme: Quarto extension with Seedcase-specific CSS themes and HTML templates for all Seedcase websites.