4TU.ResearchData Versioning & Release Management

While 4TU.ResearchData does not provide inherent version control or release management, its integration with Git allows researchers to efficiently manage their software submissions and ensure proper citation through Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). This integration facilitates:

• Reproducibility: Researchers can track changes in their code hosted on external platforms, making it easier to replicate results and understand the evolution of their work.

• Collaboration: Team members can work on different versions simultaneously within their Git repositories, merging changes seamlessly.

• Precise citation: Specific versions of software can be cited using DOIs, ensuring that others reference the exact code used for particular results.

• Long-term accessibility: Older versions of software remain available within the repository, allowing for historical analysis.

• Credibility: A clear version history maintained externally demonstrates the development process and improvements over time.

The repository supports flexible Git integration, enabling researchers to directly connect to their Git repositories during the upload process.

Each software deposit receives a unique DOI, facilitating proper citation and impact tracking.

By leveraging these features, researchers can increase the visibility of their software contributions, ensure long-term preservation of their code, enable proper attribution through DOI-based citations, and facilitate collaboration and code reuse within the scientific community. These benefits align with open science principles and significantly enhance the overall impact and longevity of research outputs.