Innovative Training Enabled by a Research Software Engineering Community of Trainers (INTERSECT)

To address the lack of software development and engineering training for intermediate and advanced developers of research software, we are developing INnovative Training Enabled by a Research Software Engineering Community of Trainers (INTERSECT). INTERSECT will provide expert-led training courses and workshops to build a pipeline of researchers trained in best practices for research software development. This training will enable researchers to produce better software and, for some, assume the role of Research Software Engineer (RSE). INTERSECT will bring together RSE instructors from U.S. institutions to exploit the expertise of a growing RSE community. INTERSECT will sponsor a multi-day bootcamp for intermediate and advanced students from U.S. institutions. INTERSECT will curate the material used in the workshops and training sessions while working with existing frameworks to provide an open-source platform to allow for continued engagement with the training material and help coordinate the effort across the RSE-trainer community. INTERSECT will also sponsor annual RSE-trainer workshops, focused on the curation and communal generation of training material. These workshops will connect RSE practitioner-instructors from across the country to leverage knowledge from multiple institutions and to strengthen the RSE community. Our poster will introduce the project, overview the planned activities, and describe how people can get involved as contributors or participants. A poster presented at the SIAM CSE21 conference, minisymposterium PP7: Software Productivity and Sustainability for CSE.