CiTAR - Preserving Software-based Research

In contrast to books or published articles, pure digital output of research projects is more fragile and, thus, more difficult to preserve and more difficult to be made available and to be reused by a wider research community. Not only does a fast-growing format diversity in research data sets require additional software preservation but also today’s computer assisted research disciplines increasingly devote significant resources into creating new digital resources and software-based methods. In order to adapt FAIR data principles, especially to ensure re-usability of a wide variety of research outputs, novel ways for preservation of software and additional digital resources are required as well as their integration into existing research data management strategies. This article addresses preservation challenges and preservation options of containers and virtual machines to encapsulate software-based research methods as portable and preservable software-based research resources, provides a preservation plan as well as an implementation.