# Dune Force: Final review **date:** 01-11-2023 ## General remarks Caroline: we learnd a lot related to releasing and co-developing software. The presence of the DCC staff in the office was key to develop self-relience and confidence in trying new things. Time investment was big but it pays off if there is interest in keep developig code. It was easier to understand the concepts/ideas from the explanations from the dcc staff than from the many materials available online. Bart: what I learned from the interaction with the dcc-staff was better than in courses in the graduate school and other PhD courses. The support push us to invest the time in developing the skills we needed to improve our knowledge on version control and developing software. Sierd: we did not know what we were applying for... But you provided the expertise we do not have. It was frithening to addopt the changes, and it was overwhelming at the begining to learn all that it we needed to catch up. So, it took a while to catch up with the pace of the support. We had to adapt our way of working and that was frithening. However, I learned a lot in the process and the contributions of the dcc support was reflected in the short-course we organized. Currently, we are concern we might loose our pace after the support is over. ## Feedback: - Pace of the collaboration? - I got 5 min back for every 1 minute I invested in co-developing with the dcc. I would encourage other researcher by saying that investing time is worthy in the long run. - Improvement: we should have optimize the plannig by looking at the whole support period, and identifying where is more beneficial for researchers to invest time in co-development. - Time spent on your end: More than you expected? - The most valuable part was the learning from the DCC. This should be stressed when communicating with researcher looking into getting support. - Topics/skills you found difficult to understand? Why? What could we have done better? - software testing - Any software skills you currently miss to improve your software that we couldn’t offer you during this support period? - What can we improve in the way we work with you and the rest of the team? - Long term planning - Personal engagement was very good, the sprint-session really showed that. This was very instrumental to the success. - Flexibility from the dcc was a good thing to compensate the lack of planning. - Can the DCC provide short support sessions so that we can keep updates with the technology and check we keep on track with the development? - Would you consider paying thru research funds for the support provided by the DCC? - Yes, We have experiences with people that help us with instruments in fieldwork. There are funds that considere for those situations. The DCC could be included as such type of resources in grant applications. - Do you think there is room in research funds for that? - The logistics are challenging. Appliants to funds are not yet inspired to include time of support the dcc provides as part of grant applications. - In European projects, it might be easy to justify the need for specialies in tech as part of the resources. It might be usuful to pitch the idea to with personell that provides support for preparing grant applications at TU Delf, and explain how having staff that provide the expertise of the DCC can become a plus (e.g. how to leverage the expertise of the DCC to be more competitive in grant applications).