TRAIL Tool Champions

The idea of a Tool Champion comes from business management, where the research and recommendation of software tools is delegated to expert engineers. The engineer who finally chooses the tool becomes the “tool champion”; i.e. the contact person for that particular tool within the company.

He/she is an expert on the tool and masters its capabilities. In addition, he/she can teach and/or advise other users on the use of the tool and assist in the transition from the existing infrastructure to the new tool. The notion of an expert should be understood in the words of the physicist Niels Bohr: “An expert is a person who has made all possible mistakes in a very limited field.

In this spirit, we are introducing Tool Champions into TRAIL. Each researcher funded by the TRAIL initiative is invited to choose a tool, software or methodology that he or she has mastered and thus becomes the expert, the reference person for this tool within the TRAIL community.

We are currently thinking about the best way to offer this expertise to interested actors, whether they are companies or other research organisations. We are doing so through a first tool made available here. For more information or suggestions please write to: contact@trail.ac

The idea of a Tool Champion comes from business management, where the research and recommendation of software tools is delegated to expert engineers. The engineer who finally chooses the tool becomes the “tool champion”; i.e. the contact person for that particular tool within the company.

He/she is an expert on the tool and masters its capabilities. In addition, he/she can teach and/or advise other users on the use of the tool and assist in the transition from the existing infrastructure to the new tool. The notion of an expert should be understood in the words of the physicist Niels Bohr: “An expert is a person who has made all possible mistakes in a very limited field.

In this spirit, we are introducing Tool Champions into TRAIL. Each researcher funded by the TRAIL initiative is invited to choose a tool, software or methodology that he or she has mastered and thus becomes the expert, the reference person for this tool within the TRAIL community.

We are currently thinking about the best way to offer this expertise to interested actors, whether they are companies or other research organisations. We are doing so through a first tool made available here. For more information or suggestions please write to: contact@trail.ac

Here’s an example of an Open-Source Tool Champion.