Accessing open source BGS software through GitHub
BGS is increasingly utilising GitHub to make its software available as open source and encourage collaboration with partners and the wider community.
15/12/2021
BGS is increasingly utilising GitHub, a collaborative software source control platform, to make its software available as open source to encourage collaborative software development with partners and the wider community.
Projects from across the organisation have provided access to innovative tools, documentation and even training materials through the BGS GitHub page. For example, the ETL Helper tool is a Python library that helps simplify the process of transferring data between databases. BGS published the software to GitHub to ensure that it could be used for collaborative projects with other agencies and because it could be useful for other users using Python with databases. Since then, the project has received code contributions and valuable feedback on future improvements from external users.
ETLHelper animated process. BGS © UKRI.
As part of this approach to more collaborative development, BGS has also been working on a new way for developers, data scientists, modellers and others across the organisation to promote and highlight their activities and outputs – the BGS GitHub blog.
Introduction to GitHub blog
BGS Digital has a development blog series published on our BGS GitHub page. Over the past 18 months, staff from across the directorate have published a range of exciting content covering innovations, how-tos and tutorials, and discussions about design concepts or development issues. Whereas ‘traditional’ blog posts tend to be longer-form discussions, these posts are designed to be short and sweet, often including code snippets and screengrabs to illustrate the discussion or concept.
BGS GitHub blog . BGS © UKRI.
These posts are a great way to document processes, methodologies and scripts that have been used within a project, to highlight some of the concepts that worked well and to flag up some trouble areas. The posts raise the profile of the work that can sometimes go under the radar as part of a bigger project, whether it’s a back-end system that supports other, more visible parts of an application, refactoring code and servers to support recent updates or a proof of concept demonstrator used in the BGS Open Day.
As these posts are public and accessible in GitHub, it makes the work of BGS Digital visible to the wider world, which helps raise the profile of the work being undertaken across the range of fields that staff work in.
Blog Day for the application development team
We all want to make our work as visible and useful as possible, to highlight achievements and to provide solutions or support to problems that will help others inside and outside BGS. However, finding time to write a blog post can often be difficult with increasing demands on our time.
To help address this issue and seed the development blog series with exciting content, the application development team within BGS Digital held an event in August 2021 to start and finish a blog post, suitable for publication, within a single working day; a single, time-boxed event to publicise that snippet, how-to, tech demo or best practice that had been on the backlog. The day was a success with eight new posts being written that are now being scheduled for publication throughout the year.
Find out more
To learn more about the developments going on, please visit the BGS GitHub blog series.
About the author
Steven Richardson
Geospatial applications developer
Relative topics
Latest blogs
Property subsidence assessment: helping to mitigate shrink–swell hazard risk
25/01/2023
The BGS Property Subsidence Assessment dataset provides insurers and homeowners with tools to better understand shrink–swell and the risk it poses to homes and businesses.
MYRIAD-EU: shifting the paradigm in disaster risk management
17/01/2023
How changing our approach to disaster risk reduction practices can create a more resilient future.
Five places in Yorkshire to assess key geological hazards
21/12/2022
A field trip to Yorkshire has helped our data products team improve their output.
IODP Expedition 386: hosting a sampling party in Japan
19/12/2022
BGS help lead the final phase of IODP Expedition 386 in Japan, coordinating science colleagues from around the globe to extract samples from sediment cores aboard DV Chikyu.
Mushroom spotting at BGS Keyworth
09/12/2022
Colleagues at BGS are mapping mushrooms as part of efforts to enhance biodiversity on the Keyworth site.
Building underneath the Colosseum: the importance of urban geology
21/11/2022
Tim Kearsey reports on his underground excursion around Rome.
Introducing the BGS Debris Flow Susceptibility Model for Great Britain
21/11/2022
Debris flows are a landslide hazard of particular concern to transport infrastructure managers and local authorities.
Spooky geology
31/10/2022
Explore thirteen of our favourite spooky geological hotspots around the UK.
Notes from an applied glacial geology field course in Norfolk
28/10/2022
Marine geoscientist Catriona MacDonald and urban geologist Raushan Arnhardt share their experiences from a recent trip to north Norfolk to learn more about glacial geology.
Tracking nitrate and ammonium in the environment
20/10/2022
Newly developed methodologies are improving our understanding of nitrogen cycling.
The question of quality: how data science is tackling threats to our groundwater
14/10/2022
An improved understanding of groundwater quality threats could help better manage groundwater resources and mitigate threats to global water supplies.
Disaster risk reduction through geoscience
13/10/2022
Exploring hazard research at BGS helps us to understand hazard risks and reduce vulnerability to disasters across the globe.