RSWP (CASRAI)
Research Software Stewardship Certification — Professional
What you earn
The credential itself
Pass the examination and CASRAI issues this certificate and the post-nominal RSWP (CASRAI), signed by the Programme Director and verifiable by anyone, permanently, from the code on its face.
CASRAI Certification
Certificate of Professional Competence
This is to certify that
Dr. Amelia R. Hartley
has completed the prescribed programme of study and passed the examination in
Research Software Stewardship — Professional
and is admitted to the designationRSWP (CASRAI)
Certifications
RSWP (CASRAI) — Research Software Stewardship, Professional
CASRAI·Issued Mar 2026·Credential ID CASRAI-RSW-2026-O6I5N8
casrai.org/verify/CASRAI-RSW-2026-O6I5N8
Every certificate is issued under the signature of Dr. Diana Nieves Castro, MD, Programme Director of CASRAI Certification, who sets the syllabus, blueprint and pass mark for this credential.
It certifies that its holder passed the CASRAI examination for this course on the date shown, scored against the blueprint and pass mark published on this page — and anyone can confirm it from the verification code, without an account and without contacting us.
About this credential
What it covers
Body of knowledge
Exam blueprint
The exam is assembled to these weights on every attempt. They are published before purchase because a blueprint you cannot see is not a blueprint.
| Domain | Proportion of exam | Weight | Items |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research software as a first-class output: definitions, policy, and the RSE role1 | 12%≈ 1 item | ≈ 1 | |
| Software metadata and machine-actionable description2 | 15%≈ 1 item | ≈ 1 | |
| Identifiers, versioning, release management and archiving3 | 14%≈ 1 item | ≈ 1 | |
| Software citation, credit and contributorship4 | 11%≈ 1 item | ≈ 1 | |
| Licensing, intellectual property and institutional policy5 | 14%≈ 1 item | ≈ 1 | |
| Reproducibility: environment, dependency and provenance capture6 | 14%≈ 1 item | ≈ 1 | |
| Engineering quality: documentation, testing, review and security7 | 12%≈ 1 item | ≈ 1 | |
| Software management planning, sustainability and governance8 | 8%≈ 1 item | ≈ 1 | |
| Total | 100% | 6 |
Item counts are approximate. Each attempt draws a fresh form to the weights above, so the exact number of items per domain varies between attempts.
Syllabus
11 modules, 11 lessons
Every lesson and every learning outcome is listed. The lesson bodies open on enrolment; nothing else about the course is withheld.
11 modules · 11 lessons · 95 h
Lesson material opens once you are enrolled. The full syllabus and every learning outcome are shown here so you can judge the coverage before you pay.
Module 1
1
1 lesson · 8 h
- Locked.Research software as an output: definitions, policy, and the RSE role8 h · Locked
On completion you will be able to
- The candidate can:
- Classify an artefact along the script→tooling→community-package spectrum and state the stewardship consequences of the classification.
- Explain why software required its own FAIR principles, naming executability, composite nature and continuous versioning.
- Identify the binding and the merely recommended requirements applying to a given project.
- Describe the RSE role and the bodies that represent it, and state accurately what each does and does not certify.
Module 2
2
1 lesson · 10 h
- Locked.FAIR4RS in operation10 h · Locked
On completion you will be able to
- The candidate can:
- Recite and interpret every FAIR4RS principle and sub-principle in its published wording.
- Map each structural difference from data FAIR to the software property that caused it.
- Assess a real project against each sub-principle and produce an evidenced gap list.
- Locate a discoverability or citability failure in a specific sub-principle.
Module 3
3
1 lesson · 10 h
- Locked.Describing software: CITATION.cff, CodeMeta, SPDX10 h · Locked
On completion you will be able to
- The candidate can:
- Produce a valid CITATION.cff including version, authors with identifiers, licence and release DOI.
- Produce or review a CodeMeta record and explain its relationship to CFF and to platform-generated metadata.
- Apply SPDX identifiers for machine-readable licence declaration.
- Specify the metadata a repository must capture at software deposit.
- Detect metadata drift between hand-maintained files.
Module 4
4
1 lesson · 9 h
- Locked.Identifiers, versioning and release management9 h · Locked
On completion you will be able to
- The candidate can:
- Explain why a repository URL fails F1, distinguishing a location from an identifier.
- Specify an identifier strategy covering concept, version and — where warranted — component granularity.
- Design a release process that produces a citable archived artefact as a by-product of normal development.
- Apply a versioning scheme and state what a version number does and does not communicate.
Module 5
5
1 lesson · 8 h
- Locked.Archiving: Zenodo, Software Heritage, and continuity8 h · Locked
On completion you will be able to
- The candidate can:
- Configure or specify a repository-to-archive deposit path and state precisely what it preserves.
- Distinguish what a Zenodo release DOI guarantees from what a SWHID guarantees, and advise on when both are needed.
- Assess the continuity risk in a platform-dependent project and specify mitigations.
Module 6
6
1 lesson · 8 h
- Locked.Software citation, credit and contributorship8 h · Locked
On completion you will be able to
- The candidate can:
- Construct a complete software citation and justify each element.
- Decide what to cite — software, software paper, both, specific version — and state the reasoning.
- Advise a project on becoming citable, ordered by benefit per unit effort.
- Attribute contribution across a project, distinguishing authorship of software from authorship of a paper about it.
Module 7
7
1 lesson · 10 h
- Locked.Licensing I: the landscape and dependency obligations10 h · Locked
On completion you will be able to
- The candidate can:
- Explain why unlicensed code is not free code.
- Distinguish the permissive licences by notice, patent and trademark treatment.
- Determine the obligations a dependency tree creates and identify the dependencies constraining the outbound licence.
- Resolve a permissive/copyleft interaction including vendoring, linking, containerisation and network use.
- Apply machine-readable licence declaration satisfying R1.1.
Module 8
8
1 lesson · 6 h
- Locked.Licensing II: institutional IP, ownership and escalation6 h · Locked
On completion you will be able to
- The candidate can:
- Identify who owns a piece of research software in a described employment and funding arrangement, and name the office to consult.
- Advise on releasing software with commercialisation potential, including the open-disclosure/patentability interaction.
- Evaluate contributor agreement options for an academic contributor base.
- State the limits of their own competence and escalate appropriately.
Module 9
9
1 lesson · 12 h
- Locked.Reproducibility: environments, dependencies, containers12 h · Locked
On completion you will be able to
- The candidate can:
- Specify the minimum artefact set for re-running an analysis at a stated horizon and explain what degrades over each.
- Distinguish an environment specification from a lock and explain why only one reproduces.
- Evaluate a container image as a reproducibility artefact and identify its failure modes.
- Diagnose a failed reproduction to a specific cause.
- Record computational provenance satisfying R1.2.
Module 10
10
1 lesson · 9 h
- Locked.Engineering quality: documentation, testing, review, security9 h · Locked
On completion you will be able to
- The candidate can:
- Evaluate documentation against the distinct needs of user, contributor and future maintainer.
- Assess testing adequacy for a project's risk profile and recommend proportionate improvement.
- Specify a code review practice suited to a small research group.
- Evaluate a project against a published checklist and produce a prioritised plan.
- Identify the security and supply-chain obligations on distributed or service-operated research software.
Module 11
11
1 lesson · 5 h
- Locked.Software management planning, sustainability and governance5 h · Locked
On completion you will be able to
- The candidate can:
- Draft or review a software management plan proportionate to scale and risk.
- Assess sustainability and identify the single greatest continuity risk.
- Specify a governance model for a project moving toward community ownership.
- Plan an end-of-life or handover.
- Cost software stewardship into a proposal, naming what is fundable.
Assessment
How the exam works
The exam is closed-book and multiple choice. Each attempt draws a fresh form to the domain weights above, so no two attempts are the same paper and no answer key circulates. The pass mark is 70% and is fixed — there is no curve, no quota and no adjustment by cohort.
Scoring is immediate. You are shown your overall result and, for every item, the option you chose, the correct option and the reasoning behind it — whether you passed or not. A failed attempt may be retaken after 90 days. The wait exists so a retake is a second attempt at the material rather than a second attempt at remembering the paper.
Forms are assembled to the blueprint above or not at all: where a domain cannot yet be sampled to that standard, the exam declines to start rather than issue an unbalanced paper. Your material and progress are never affected, and there is no time limit on when you sit.
Passing candidates are issued a certificate with a verification code. Anyone can check that code on our public verification page without an account and without contacting us.
Certifying authority
Signed by Dr. Diana Nieves Castro, MD
CASRAI’s certification programme is academically and medically directed by Dr. Diana Nieves Castro, MD, Programme Director, who sets the syllabus and blueprint for this credential and signs every certificate issued under it.
CASRAI has maintained the terminology and reporting standards of research administration for over a decade. It assumed leadership of the CRediT contributor-roles taxonomy in 2014 and carried it through to adoption as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, now in use by publishers, funders and institutions worldwide. This examination is drawn from that body of work.
What the credential certifies: that its holder passed the CASRAI examination for this course on the date shown, scored against the blueprint and pass mark published above — verifiable by anyone, permanently, from the code on its face.
