About NOAA FIT

Our mission

The FIT curates publicly accessible software tools that NOAA Fisheries scientists use and develop to support research and operational scientific work. Through curating software, the FIT promotes use of the best available scientific software tools to support living marine resource management. The FIT strives to promote FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles for research software.

Scope Statement

The NOAA Fisheries Integrated Toolbox includes software tools in a variety of formats and languages, including (but not limited to) R packages, web apps, data visualizations, report templates, and graphical user interfaces (GUIs). The software must be publicly accessible (e.g., web apps should not be password protected), and we encourage open source code when feasible. Software should support research and operational scientific work done by NOAA Fisheries staff, affiliates, and partners, and must be generalizable (i.e., adaptable to use cases outside one specific region or management need).

Who is involved

The FIT is nothing without users and developers of software! The NOAA FIT is maintained by the National Stock Assessment Program in the NOAA Fisheries Office of Science and Technology in collaboration with NOAA Fisheries researchers and developers across the line office. The FIT committee, consisting of representatives across science centers and disciplines, provides direction for the FIT. The NOAA Fisheries senior scientists may optionally attend FIT committee meetings and serve as liasons with the NOAA Fisheries Science Board.

How do I list my software tool on the NOAA FIT website?

Please request onboarding by opening an issue in the onboard-and-update repository.

The metadata of my software on the NOAA FIT website is out of date. How do I update it?

Please request the metadata be updated by opening an issue in the onboard-and-update repository.

What is the FIT committee working on?

See the FIT committee’s 2024 Strategic Plan Tracking.