Going Open is a Process

About BGS

"Our mission is to provide impartial and independent geoscience advice and data."

Work with academics, governments, industry and the public
Digital division has 10 years of making digital data available e.g. via OneGeology and OpenGeoscience Portal and contributions to standards for data sharing e.g. GeoSciML

Headwinds

Going open is hindered by: previous investment and skills in proprietary technology; siloed confidential data; and requirements of security standard certifications.

Tailwinds

Going open is helped by: projects with external partners; scientists adopting reproducible workflows; and supportive senior management.

Two dimensions of Coding in the Open

Timeline of collaborative software development training

2016-03: Installation of on-premises GitLab server
2016-10: Git training
2018-08: Python Clinics
2019-05: GitLab Project Management training
2019-07: Introduction to Python training
2020-04: Python Improvers training

Proprietary tools + internal code

Timeline of corporate buy-in to open source

2017-02: Separate network area for developers
2018-09: GitLab Enterprise Edition funded
2019-07: Open and Reproducible Science keynote at Digital Workshop
2019-09: Silver sponsor FOSS4G UK conference
2020-07: BGS Digital Strategy includes "Collaborative, open and reproducible research"
2020-09: Nexus Firewall server approved (pending funding)

Open Source software + internal code

Timeline of open code releases

2011-02: Add INSPIRE capabilities to MapServer
2013-09: First pull request to GeoServer
2018-07: Launch of github.com/BritishGeologicalSurvey
2019-03: Viewing geotagged photos in QGIS - how to
2019-09: ETL Helper - data transfer tool
2019-10: Geo NER Model - machine learning model
2020-01: DISOLV - groundwater modelling tool
2020-10: Stratigraph - relative rock ages from text

Open Source software + open code

Conclusion

Git training
Git training
Git training
Git training

Conclusion

Git and coding training and pair programming
Listen to security concerns and mitigate them
Try open source on independent projects first
Extract common code into open reusable libraries

Bonus slides on BGS open source projects

Other open source projects

Coming soon

UKGEOS SensorThingsAPI