STRIDE Research Software Engineering COVID-19 interview study dataset and materials.

This dataset contains results from an interview study deployed between April and June 2020 to understand the changing situation in research software engineering work environments as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study took place over an eight-week period, during which 17 self-identified research software engineers (RSEs) recorded their thoughts about the impact of the pandemic on their work and lifestyles. Each weekly entry included a series of questions based on the agile software engineering retrospective, a technique used within agile teams to look back on previous work. The first week followed a basic retrospective format, asking participants to assess what went well and didn’t go well, and to identify areas that could be improved going forward. To encourage ongoing participation, questions in subsequent weeks were adapted from creative retrospective plans designed by agile practitioners.

An invitation to take part was issued via various international RSE social media channels in two batches, resulting in 11 participants starting in the week commencing on the 6^th of April, and six starting in the week of the 20^th of April. In total, 17 participants responded to the invitation; 15 agreed to participate after the first week. Participants were sent an email each week inviting them to complete a diary entry for a total of eight weeks; data were collected through a survey deployed via JISC’s Online Surveys.

The consent form and a pdf of the first week of questions are included in the materials to provide an example of how the survey was administered. The entry week and questions are reported in full in columns A and B in the spreadsheet accordingly. To avoid identification of individuals, demographic information and some contextual information has been redacted. Redactions are indicated by *** in the response.

The study was conducted as part of the STRIDE project: https://stride.org.uk.