pyOpenSci and Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS) Partnership#

pyOpenSci has a formal partnership with the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS). JOSS is a journal and a publisher that provides a way for developers of research software to get academic credit for their work.

The JOSS review process is about publication. A review from JOSS will provide you with a citable, Crossref digital object identifier (DOI). pyOpenSci aligns closely with the broad mission of JOSS to provide maintainers with credit for their open source work. However, our mission is also more focused. pyOpenSci is not just about open source maintainers getting academic credit for their work.

pyOpenSci is different from JOSS because:

  • We build community around the scientific Python ecosystem. Maintainers that go through our process can ask questions and get help. Or they can just talk to other maintainers who might have similar challenges.

  • We support the Python tools that drive scientific open reproducible science workflows. We also provide training in that space to support new users and future maintainers and contributors.

  • We focus on enforcement and encouragement of Python-specific packaging standards and best practices. As such we try to help maintainers improve the quality of their package.

  • We focus on package documentation and usability as a way to improve quality and user experience.

  • We have a view across the entire scientific ecosystem. As such we will try our best to identify redundancy in package function across the ecosystem.

  • We provide additional visibility for our packages through our tool catalog, website and social media presence.

At the end of the day the pyOpenSci badge represents packages that are high quality, maintained and vetted. We want the community to trust the tools in our ecosystem.

How is review at pyOpenSci different from the JOSS review process?#

We are not a typical publisher or journal. Rather we are a community that provides support for both a diverse group of software maintainers and long term maintenance of our packages.

The pyOpenSci review process is different from that of JOSS in a few ways:

  1. Our review is specifically designed to enforce modern, community-accepted best practices for Python packaging.

  2. We place heavy emphasis on documentation and usability in our reviews and associated standardization of both.

  3. We build community around and visibility for its tools.

  4. We will promote packages and package maintainers once they are accepted into our ecosystem.

  5. We support long term maintenance of packages. If the maintainer needs to step down, we will ensure a new maintainer takes over or sunset and remove the package from our ecosystem.

  6. We provide a welcoming forum for you to ask questions and get help with maintaining your package as needed.

JOSS reviews are also more limited in scope compared to pyOpenSci. Some of the JOSS submission criteria are, in places, less stringent or less specific to the Python programming language than those of pyOpenSci.

You can improve your package with a review at pyOpenSci and still publish in JOSS#

You don’t have to chose between pyOpenSci and JOSS; You can submit your package to both.

pyOpenSci and JOSS are complementary, partner organizations. You don’t have to choose one or the other! After a package to pyOpenSci has been reviewed and accepted you can also choose to register it with JOSS.

JOSS has more limited scope for packages that it will review. For instance, while pyOpenSci will review and accept API wrappers, JOSS won’t.

If your package is accepted by pyOpenSci and in scope for JOSS, JOSS will fast track your package through their review process given it was already reviewed by us.

You do not need to go through two reviews!

Once accepted by JOSS, you now have both a pyOpenSci acceptance and one by JOSS.

  • JOSS will give you a Crossref DOI for citation.

  • You can display that and your pyOpenSci peer reviewed badge at the top of your package’s README.md file.