Water Science Software Institute: Agile and Open Source Scientific Software Development

An Open Community Engagement Process (OCEP) applies open source mechanics and software engineering to water science research. To operationalize OCEP, the authors conceptualize a Water Science Software Institute whose mission is to support and accelerate water science by transforming both the software and research cultures of the water science community. This article describes the OCEP open source community amplification principle as well as the authors' experiences, lessons learned, and challenges with operationalizing OCEP.