Journal of Open Source Software

Collaborative space for JOSS contributions

Open Journals

http://www.theoj.org

Open Journals is a collection of open source, open access journals. We currently have four main publications:

Journal of Open Source Software · https://joss.theoj.org Journal of Open Source Education · https://jose.theoj.org Proceedings of the JuliaCon Conferences · https://proceedings.juliacon.org The Journal of Brief Ideas · https://briefideas.org Open Source All of our journals run on open source software which is available under our GitHub organization profile: https://github.com/openjournals

Author Guidelines

Website

Checklist

Conflict of interest

• I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review. Code of Conduct

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/stillwater-sc/universal

• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?

• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@jamesquinlan) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?

• Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines

Functionality

• Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?

• Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?

• Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?

• Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.

• Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).

• Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?

• Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?

• Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1) Contribute to the software 2) Report issues or problems with the software 3) Seek support

Software paper

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?

• A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve, who the target audience is, and its relation to other work?

• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?

• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?

• References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?