New INCF Working Group: INCF/OCNS Software WG

The Software Working Group is a joint collaboration between INCF and the Organization for Computational Neuroscience (OCNS). It was founded in July 2020 in a discussion thread on Neurostars and consists mainly of neuroscience tool developers maintaining and developing simulators and neurodata analysis tools together with tool users. The working group focuses on evaluating and improving computational neuroscience tools: finding them, testing them, learning how they work, and informing developers of issues to ensure that these tools remain in good shape by having communities looking after them. The group also works as a forum for tool developers to learn from each other and work towards improving interoperability between related tools and following best standards.

The working group arranges regular developer sessions with tools presented by its developers. So far, sessions have been held on Brian, GeNN, NeuroFedora, and neurolib.

NeuroFedora: https://youtu.be/d8wO-ekFw5M
neurolib: https://youtu.be/ngvVtqiilVk
GeNN: https://youtu.be/1ZHpKG41kp8
The group will also arrange tutorials at CNS*2021, on using bash, git/Github, and Python. 

The working group has its own repository on Github: https://github.com/OCNS/SoftwareWG and uses the new Github Discussions feature. The working group is a community based group that is open to everyone at all stages of their careers---scientific or otherwise. 

To join, simply say hello to the community on the “Hello world” discussion topic here. More information can be found on the WG’s website at: https://ocns.github.io/SoftwareWG.