- This page was last modified 03:31, 10 September 2008.
- This page has been accessed 745 times.
- Privacy policy
- About KAREN wiki
- Disclaimers
Crop & Food Research Project Plan
CFR’s KAREN Champion is Tracy Williams. Tracy works in CFR's Business Planning Team where she is involved in a number of knowledge management, information-related, science quality assurance projects. Amongst her roles is providing strategic input to multi-million dollar research proposals and the institute’s overall strategic planning processes.Tracy has a background in science and journalism and first began at CFR as a scientific editor.
Tracy has been chosen for the role of KAREN Champion because of her breadth of understanding of research activity and processes within CFR and awareness of the potential for collaborative, cross-disciplinary activities, both within CFR and with collaborating organisations. She also has a good appreciation of the role of IT in our organisation because of her close working relationship with the Information Systems Manager, participation in knowledge management networks and workshops, a role on CFR’s Records Management Committee as well as responsibilities for managing CFR’s database of science outputs and adapting it to improve the monitoring of research application indicators for central government. Through these responsibilities Tracy has developed very good connections with scientific and management staff throughout the institute. She has enhanced her IT knowledge through recent attendance, with the IS Manager, at a Gartner Symposium in Australia.
Tracy is committed to working with the Information Systems team to increase understanding amongst research staff of the potential to use new e-Research tools via KAREN and encourage uptake of new technologies to enhance research collaboration and the competitiveness of New Zealand’s R&D sector.
Tracy reports directly to the General Manager, Corporate Services, Philippa Jones, and in relation to this project will jointly report to CFR’s new Chief Scientist, Dr Julian Lee. She will provide regular updates to the Executive Management Team on uptake of KAREN-related e-Research and collaboration technologies as well as opportunities for CFR to maximise opportunities from this service. Through her links with CFR’s Communications and PR team she will also communicate to CFR staff, clients and stakeholders the benefits of using KAREN to encourage collaborative e-Research and data-sharing.
Tracy and colleagues have had a paper accepted at this conference and Tracy will present it in September at Oxford. Details follow:
ENHANCING E-RESEARCH THROUGH THE KIWI ADVANCED RESEARCH AND EDUCATION NETWORK – THE AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND EXPERIENCE
Tracy Williamsa, Julian Carverb and Dean Patfieldc a New Zealand Institute for Crop & Food Research Limited, Private Bag 4704, Christchurch, New Zealand b Seradigm, 190 Hereford St, PO Box 30042, Christchurch, New Zealand c Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, PO Box 540, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand
The Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN) was set up by the New Zealand government in 2006 to facilitate collaboration and leading edge e-Research amongst the research, education and innovation sectors, both nationally and internationally. A specific goal is to connect the research and education sector to the broader innovation community for pre-commercial, R&D-based collaboration. Activities that use the speed and capacity of KAREN to deliver innovative education and research outcomes include: improved access to local or overseas partners; access to digital resources from universities or New Zealand Crown Research Institutes; access to local, national and international advanced networks and their digital content; real-time collaboration for teaching and research; video streaming; multi-media services; and remote collaborative teaching and learning.
To encourage broad participation amongst the organisations currently connected to KAREN an Institutional Capability Build Fund has been established by the New Zealand Government to accelerate the capability of these members to exploit KAREN’s full value. This paper describes the experience of the New Zealand Institute for Crop & Food Research Limited, a Crown Research Institute with the vision of leading New Zealand innovation in food and food production, in applying those funds to enhance KAREN uptake amongst its science and business professionals. Prospects for new applications as well as the institutional learning that is taking place are also described.
Our Institutional capability build project team features:
Dr David Teulon, entomologist at CFR, and his colleagues in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, received a grant for approximately NZ$100,000 to demonstrate the value of KAREN for real-time remote identification of invasive pests and diseases by sharing knowledge amongst New Zealand workers and international experts. New Zealand is under constant threat from invasive pests and diseases. This project addresses the need to rapidly and accurately identify organisms intercepted at the border in association with imports to determine whether they pose security risks to New Zealand’s natural and productive ecosystems and whether remedial action (e.g. eradication) is required. New Zealand has limited taxonomic expertise (there are few specialists and their expertise is usually restricted to particular insect groups) so verification by overseas experts is often needed to ensure accurate identification. This process can be time-consuming (specimens are sent by post) and delays can be disastrous. The Ministry for Agriculture and Fisheries’ Biosecurity New Zealand relies on collaboration with taxonomic experts in New Zealand’s Crown Research Institutes and universities, and in international organisations, to identify pests and diseases intercepted at the border. The need for real-time collaborative diagnostic tools is a priority identified in the recent Biosecurity Science Strategy, along with further strengthening science and end-user collaborations within New Zealand and internationally.
This project is scoping the available middleware for use in real-time remote diagnostics through KAREN. This will include general-purpose collaboration software (EVO, BeSTGRID), diagnostic-specific systems, and relevant technologies used in other fields (e.g. medical science). One or more real-time remote diagnostic systems will be tested under a range of constraints (e.g. time zones, cable speeds) both within New Zealand (between Crown Research Institutes and universities) and between New Zealand and Australia, and New Zealand and Canada. Finally, a protocol is being developed to best utilise KAREN for real-time, remote pest and disease diagnostics by New Zealand biosecurity scientists. Recommendations will then be provided for the use of KAREN for real-time remote diagnosis for biosecurity to the wider science community through a multi-provider government and industry funded research collaboration called Better Border Biosecurity.
The process of insect identification using real-time remote diagnostics brings the scientist, the specimen, and other collaborators or students together within the virtual environment enabled by KAREN. Specimens can be compared interactively with voucher specimens, digital diagnostic keys and database images, allowing collaborative identifications to be made rapidly and accurately. By testing the remote diagnostics system with taxonomists in Australia and North America, this project is providing a basis for developing and strengthening international collaborations for border biosecurity, through KAREN’s associated research and education networks.
CFR is currently identifying how KAREN can be applied to achieve its corporate vision of `fresh thinking in food’ by developing an action plan to implement opportunities, embed e-Research initiatives into organisational and research planning processes, and implement key projects.
The institutional capability fund project involves identifying possibilities, defining how CFR could apply KAREN to achieve its business goals, and developing an action plan to implement opportunities and embed e-Research thinking into organisational and research planning processes.
An investigation of likely opportunities for CFR has identified virtual research environments as a key area where KAREN can provide our scientists with a single interface to distributed and disparate sources of data about the same phenomenon.
Sensor-based tracking of environmental changes and the remote delivery of this data into crop simulation models can be enhanced through KAREN.
Data transfer and database access are obvious applications of KAREN for CFR, providing faster access to information made available from collaborators around the world. Our Nutrigenomics New Zealand collaboration is generating considerable data about the effects of food and food ingredients on the health of individuals with diseases associated with particular genetic combinations, such as Crohn’s disease. KAREN can make sharing this data and collaboration over its analysis more rapid.
Working remotely with scientists around the world on visualising images using video feed is another exciting application that may make the identification of pests and disease more immediate, allowing control measures at our borders to be triggered. Other possibilities include better collaboration as a result of being able to see other people and their data in real time, distributed research team meetings using high-performance Access GRID video conferencing equipment, and training of future researchers by capturing and storing digital representations of experiments.
Interviews with a range of CFR staff have revealed a further suite of opportunities that build on projects that are already underway. They include video conferencing to collaborators involved in FoodFrenz − a European Union-NZ research linkage that has been established to strengthen relationships between consumers, knowledge providers and industry in New Zealand and the European Union, and develop cross-sectoral collaboration. CFR is establishing an international reputation for its crop modelling and computer-based decision support systems. These are very data intensive and supply growers with crop management advice on a range of aspects of crop production, including timing of inputs and harvesting. While these models are currently focused on a crop scale, there is potential to construct them at an enterprise or district scale with data being provided to the models via remote sensors rather than farmer input. These models often run data over 30-year timeframes to produce average responses and make predictions. Fast access will be needed to new crop modelling platforms in the future and KAREN will play a role in this.
Generic applications raised during interviews include: support for dataset access, access to data manipulation tools and simulation processing capacity, discovery of collaboration opportunities, collaborative workspaces for project coordination, desktop screen sharing in order to view data, centralisation of data to avoid data silos, access to databases of genetic sequences, capturing data from live satellite feeds, high definition video to access difficult locations such as the bottom of the ocean floor, remote access to lab equipment and resources.
Feedback on KAREN from a joint Crop & Food and Landcare Research workshop in Lincoln on Wednesday August 27.
Current Uses
Future Uses
Questions
Social Implications
Organizational issues:
Technical issues:
Organizational issues:
Technical issues: