ISMIR and DAFx Tutorials 2012

h1. Title and abstract

*Reusable software and reproducibility in music informatics research*

_Mark D Plumbley, Simon Dixon, and Chris Cannam_

_Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London_

The need to develop and reuse software to process data is almost

universal in music informatics research. Many methods, including most

of those published at ISMIR, are developed in tandem with software

implementations, and some of them are too complex or too fundamentally

software-based to be reproduced readily from a published paper

alone. For this reason, it is helpful for sustainable research to have

software and data published along with papers.

In practice, non-publication of code and data is still the norm and

research software is commonly lost following publication of the

associated methods.

During this tutorial we will discuss common barriers to publication of

software and data, and will present a practical hands-on session in

which attendees will explore tools and methods to help them overcome

these barriers.

The tutorial will rapidly cover the use of version control software,

code hosting facilities, aspects of testing and provenance, and

software licensing for publication. Worked examples will be drawn from

the music and audio fields, and hands-on help will be provided by a

team of experienced researcher-developers from the Centre for Digital

Music such as Luis Figueira, Steve Welburn and Marco Fabiani.

This tutorial will be of immediate practical interest to researchers

within the music informatics community, and will also be highly

relevant to research supervisors and research group leaders with an

interest in policy and guidance.