When and how should scientific software information products be reviewed? [218]

Scientific software information products may be reviewed incrementally as part of the development process or collectively just prior to becoming public. 

When following open-source development practices, all contributions to an open-source software project must be reviewed prior to incorporation with the project or follow pre-determined and agreed-upon practices (for example, in a Quality Management Plan agreed to with a science center approving official) that ensure the software is secure and of consistently high quality. For software review of large projects, if a reviewer determines that software development practices within a project are consistent and of sufficient quality (through unit testing or similar practices), a software reviewer may determine the practices satisfy review requirements instead of reviewing each line of code in detail. All approved USGS software information products must be reviewed and approved through the Information Product Data System (IPDS) before receiving Bureau approval from the science center for subsequent public release of a static, citable version of the scientific software information product.