End-user software development in a scientific organization

Abstract

Scientific and engineering research is dependent on effective use of software artifacts; many of these artifacts are produced by the scientists themselves, rather than by trained software engineers. In order to improve the productivity of groups involved in scientific research, we have undertaken a project to understand the types of software development being undertaken by scientists, and to build a system that will help these end-users to build and manage the software. This paper summarizes the issues we have identified and the system we have built to support the scientists in their software engineering activities.