From KAREN wiki
- Facilitators
- Nick Jones, Director, BeSTGRID, Manager, Centre for eResearch, The University of Auckland
- Prof. Mark Gahegan, Director eResearch, Centre for eResearch, The University of Auckland
- Julian Carver, Consultant, Seradigm
- Location
Victoria University of Wellington, 15 October 2008
- Event description
- http://www.karen.net.nz/champions-hui/
Agenda
This meeting provided an opportunity for the champions to share the lessons learned, issues, solutions and strategies for achieving an eResearch ecosystem in New Zealand.
- What is an eResearch ecosystem
- How to create an eResearch ecosystem - challenges and opportunities in NZ
- iCBF project updates
- Video conferencing
Participants
- Nick Jones, University of Auckland
- Mark Gahegan, University of Auckland
- Julian Carver, Seradigm
- Nathan Gardiner, University of Canterbury
- Stuart Charters, Lincoln University
- John Hine, Victoria University
- Donald Neal, Waikato University
- Ben Morrison, GNS
- Lisa McCallum, ESR
- Shaun Hendy, IRL
- Julia Charity, Scion
- Andrew Dunningham, Scion
- Jonathan Hughes, NZVCC
- Nicky Gardner, ESR
- John McMaster, HortResearch
- Craig Holmes, FRST
- Carl Penwarden, MoRST
- Craig Manning, Massey University
- Tracy Williams, Crop and Food
- Paul Grimwood, GNS
- Robert Gibb, Landcare
- Vicki Lindsay, REANNZ
Notes from the hui
Institutional Issues
The following is a summary of feedback from Champions on Institutional issues
- John McMasters, Hort Research
- Awareness raising is initial focus. IT spend currently focused on Business As Usual (BAU), whereas research should be a strategic focus
- eResearch Champions need to migrate to science from initial location in Administration and Support units
- Tracey Williams, Crop & Food, Landcare Research
- Traditionally IT are seen as pushing solutions
- KAREN awareness within the institution is low, including management literacy
- Advocated action rather than a focus on raising issues with data curation, IT, etc
- John Hine, Victoria University Wellington
- Victoria have strong senior management support, from DVC-R, Pro VC Science
- Have established a coordination position, and setup some initial grid services and an optiportal multi screen visualisation system
- Issues with cultural change of researchers is "hard slog". Realise the need to draw on people are willing and engaged. Starting within initial workshops, but changing behaviour hard and requires a long time frame to effect
- Shaun Hendy, McDiarmid, IRL
- Financial stress within the institution and within research groups is first hurdle. Money is required to buy hardware to participate over the network
- Video Conferencing biggest attraction, rather than data sharing
- Seminars and Management meetings on Access Grid. Some face to face meetings appropriate first
- IRL are the biggest users of BlueFern, so computation is an attraction
- [], ESR
- There is a historical lack of engagement between IT and Research
- Developing literacy within a domain requires specific examples from each domain, as any domain fails to engage when they can't see directly how an unrelated exemplar might apply to their own domain
- Issues around IP and Trust of security mechanisms are a barrier to uptake
- Craig Manning, Massey University
- Getting a balance between ITS and Research is key
- Julia Charity, SCION
- Executive management team support has been critical
- have had success communicating as a colleague with fellow scientists
- currently have 1 person in this role, so unsure how to scale
- Andrew Dunningham, SCION
- Notes there is good IT support at SCION
- Literacy on technology, services, etc is an issue, as is funding, to increasing awareness
- Mark Gahegan, University of Auckland
- Have setup a Centre for eResearch
- Have strong Senior Management Team support
- Are seeing development of these capabilities as critical to staff retention
- Stuart Charters, Lincoln
- Approximately 6 projects with Research Assistant suppport embedded within each project
- Developing case studies, which will use to then raise more general awareness
- Hiring staff difficult as literacy and experience are scarce in this area
- Robert Gibb, Landcare Research
- Have a development focus initially, as have some seed funding, so can dive straight in. This was also enabled by having a peak capability and related resources
- Picked up international technology, and transferred, and are localising
- IT department is still an issue, as is senior management literacy
- [Research Office], ESR
- Have keen people as lead users
- Have strong connection to Research Office given this is source of funding
- Nathan Gardiner, HITLab
- Senior Management Team support has been key, with Vice Chancellor earmarking infrastructure funding
- Have an institutional plan
- Video Conferencing is a focus
- Jonathan Hughes, NZVCC
- Literacy within NZVCC on KAREN and related capabilities varies
- Overwhelming commitment from NZVCC to KAREN and eResearch
- Paul Grimwood, Ben Morrison, GNS Science
- KAREN CBF projects very useful, however IT driven, not strong researcher engagement
- Senior Management Team and Researcher literacy and awareness are low
- Data, IP, Funding, all issues
- Multi site connectivity within institution is a source of considerable impediments/issues
- Craig Holmes, FRST
- Keen to be a user, for video conferencing
- Taking an investment process point of view, need to get to the point where funding this sort of capability is addressed within research proposals
eResearch Ecosystem
Distilling the discussions about eResearch, the following were obvious key components, all of which require attention to develop an eResearch ecosystem:
- Agencies
- Government agencies are key stakeholders, as providers of funding mechanisms, definers of required outputs, and investors in infrastructure.
- Science / Research capability investment cases are key drivers for eResearch infrastructure
- Institutions and their communities
- Executive or Senior Management Teams
- Engagement, sponsorship, and development of literacy at senior levels is critical
- Representation across Administration, IT, Science/Research, and Librarian functions are all necessary
- Working with the administrative units which engage in funding proposals provides a mechanism to align funding proposals with eResearch capability development
- Science Communities
- Homes of lead users
- Lead users provide case studies, which can be used to cross fertilize between areas
- Difficult to scale activity, so lead users provide a way of seeding multiple communities, but they need support
- IT Infrastructure and Outreach
- Central support is required, with a focus on end user needs
- Provides the mechanism to operate across science communities, cross fertilising
- Work closely with lead users, build case studies
- Needs to take a long term perspective on building sustainable services out of the work it does across science communities
- National Capability
- Need a national resource centre for provision of core services, with directories of services
- Training resources key, tutorials, how tos, workshops, etc
- Could be distributed, taking advantage of and building on centres of concentrated capability already established around the country
- Need strong alignment across agencies and institutions, and have representative governance to ensure this is effected
Professional Development and Training
A theme of professional development and training needs was discussed at several points.
- BeSTGRID are working with ARCS in Australia to outline a possible joint training initiative. This is being led in New Zealand by Mark Gahegan and Julie Watson, and in Australia by Jim McGovern
- Has been some discussion of running a national eResearch seminar series, which was widely supported
- Support from many present for establishing a directory of educational resources
- Recognition that educating lead users was key, which means long lead times and potential generational change timescales to build significant capability
- The following specific opportunities for outreach and training were discussed:
- Australasian Research Management Society
- RunningHot
- Virtual Institute of Statistical Genetics
- Otago have established a Centre for Science Communication, http://www.sciencecommunication.info/. Jean Flemming is contact person
- Auckland have established the Stratus network for emerging and early career scientists, http://www.stratus.ac.nz/
- Discussion at Massey Albany about hosting a Grid Summer School, which is generally supported by others
- Need to work with the Royal Society NZ and science communicators
Identity Management
A section of the discussion focused on Identity Management, with a summary below:
- Requirements
- Institutional Identity Providers need to be established, so an institutional focus, perhaps supported by mini grants
- Is important that Service Providers are identified and established, as otherwise no services to consume
- Drivers:
- International linkages between institutions
- Accessing digital libraries from anywhere
- Enrolment process from secondary to tertiary institutions
- Concerns / Comment
- Need to focus on practical outcomes, such as specific science projects (climate change, Virtual Institute of Statistical Genetics, International Collaborations, BioSecurity)
- May need to create a groundswell of activity across data providers to force a change, as some providers may have much resistance to operating in a federated model
Video Conferencing
- Carl Penwarden, MoRST
- Noted that MoRST are very engaged in this conversation
- See that taking a long term view of eResearch is critical
- Have funding to support a national video conference support centre for the coming 3 years, with support for Access Grid, High Definition, EVO, XP, Polycom PVX, Mirial, and a booking system along with an operational quality assurance framework.
- Expression of Interest has been advertised
Action Items
- Establish community communication tools (Sakai, Email List)
Resources
The Future of Science video
