About Intersect. Intersect Mission. Intersect Purpose. What is eresearch? Intersect Membership. Intersect Australia Ltd

Transcription

1 Annual Report 11-12

2 Intersect Australia Ltd About Intersect Intersect is owned by its members and was created to provide eresearch services and solutions. Intersect was established in 2008 and currently has eleven university members: the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales, Macquarie University, the University of Technology, Sydney, the University of Newcastle, the University of New England, Southern Cross University, the University of Wollongong, the University of Western Sydney, Charles Sturt University and the University of Canberra. The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, CSIRO and Sirca are also members. Intersect Mission To work with NSW universities and others to increase the quality, efficiency and visibility of NSW based research through the provision of advanced and specialised ICT services and solutions, enabling: improved management of research data; new methods for collaboration; new research methodologies. Intersect Purpose Developing a coordinated approach to eresearch is critical to maintaining NSW s status as Australia s leading research state. To position NSW to compete favourably in the increasingly globalised, online world of research, Intersect s goals are to: deliver professional quality projects and services to its member institutions; raise awareness and stimulate the uptake of eresearch technologies at NSW universities and public and private sector research agencies; address eresearch skills shortages through the provision of training, professional development and career enhancement opportunities. What is eresearch? The term eresearch is used to refer to the application of advanced information and communication technologies to the practice of research. It aims to enhance existing research processes, making them more efficient and effective, and it enables new kinds of research processes. Intersect Membership 2 ISSN

3 Annual Report Message from the Chief Scientist It s wonderful to see the NSW Government s investment in Intersect now returning strong dividends in the form of new capabilities, valuable eresearch tools and services for NSW researchers. Intersect s software solutions are impacting productivity in key research areas. We are now witnessing a growing body of technology-enabled research outcomes in health and medical research, the biosciences, environmental and physical sciences. Mary O Kane NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer Table of Contents About Intersect Message from the Chief Scientist Governance, Boards and Committees Chair s Report, CEO s Report Intersect in the national context Infrastructure Services Member Services Services Catalogue Engineering Projects ANDS Projects How Intersect is viewed Financial Report Intersect Facts & Figures Intersect Team & Contacts Funded by Industry & Investment 3

4 Intersect Australia Ltd Governance, Boards & Committees 4 Intersect s Board of Directors are: Emeritus Professor Mark Wainwright AM, Chair Professor Andrew Cheetham, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), University of Western Sydney, (UWS) Mr Michael Kirby-Lewis, Director IT@UNSW, University of New South Wales, (UNSW) Professor Neal Ryan, Pro Vice Chancellor (Research), Southern Cross University, (SCU) Mr Bruce Meikle, Chief Information Officer, University of Sydney, (USYD) Mr John Masters, Company Director, Sirca Professor Sally Redman, CEO, The Sax Institute, Independent Mr Damien Israel, Deputy Vice-Principal, Finance & Information Technology, University of Wollongong, (UOW) Dr Ian Gibson, CEO, Intersect Providing advice and guidance to the board on projects related issues is the Innovation Committee: Emeritus Professor Mark Wainwright AM, Chair and Board Member Professor Mary O Kane, NSW Chief Scientist and Scientific Engineer, NSW Government Dr Malcolm Cook, Visiting Fellow, Lowy Institute, Independent Professor Sally Redman, Chief Executive Officer, Sax Institute, Independent Emeritus Professor Sue Rowley, Independent Dr Ian Gibson, CEO, Intersect Providing advice and guidance to the board on services related issues is the eservices and Strategy Committee: Professor Andrew Cheetham, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) UWS, Chair and Board Member Mr Geoffrey Brown, Director of ICT Solutions & Engagement Services, USYD Mr Peter James, Infrastructure and Operations Director, UTS Mr Stephen Williams, Business Manager, SCU Ms Lyn McBriarty, Director, Research Services, University of Newcastle, (NEWC) Mr Grant Sayer, Development Manager, Macquarie University, (MQ) Mr Rob Irving, Director IT, University of New England, (UNE) Professor Judy Raper, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), UOW Professor Mark Hoffman, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), UNSW Professor Andrea Bishop, Director Research, Charles Sturt University, (CSU) Dr Peter Sefton, Manager eresearch, University of Western Sydney, (UWS) Dr Ian Gibson, CEO, Intersect Providing oversight of the Intersect budget is the Board Audit and Risk Management Committee: Mr John Masters, Chair and Board Member Mr Garry McLennan, Chief Financial Officer, FlexiGroup Limited, Independent Mr Damien Israel, Deputy Vice-Principal (Finance & Information Technology), UOW Intersect s HPC resources are allocated by the Resource Allocation Committee: Professor Marc Wilkins, Ramaciotti Centre for Gene Analysis, UNSW Mr Michael Homsey, HPC Support Specialist, USYD Associate Professor Tim Langtry, Mathematical Sciences, UTS Professor Timothy Marchant, Dean of Research and Professor of Applied Mathematics, UOW Dr Craig O Neill, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, MQ Professor Pablo Moscato, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, NEWC Dr Gregory Falzon, Research Fellow, C4D Spatio-Temporal Support Unit, UNE Professor Graham King, Professor of Plant Genomics and Epigenetics, SCU Dr Damith Herath, MARCS Auditory Laboratories, UWS Professor Terry Bossomaier, Director, Research Group for Complex Systems, CSU Dr Joachim Mai, HPC Support Specialist, Intersect Storage Allocation Committee: A/Professor Grainne Moran, Director, UNSW Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre, UNSW Mr Peter Gale, Information Technology Services, UTS Professor Nicki Packer, Chemistry & Biomolecular Sciences, MQ Professor Timothy Marchant, Dean of Research, UOW Ms Lyn McBriarty, Director, Research Services, NEWC Professor Heiko Daniel, Director, Research Services, UNE Mr Stephen Williams, Business Manager, SCU Professor Andrea Bishop, CSU Mr Ross Coleman, Director, Collections and escholarship Services, USYD Professor Deborah Sweeney, Associate PVC Research (Health & Science), UWS Infrastructure Committee: Emeritus Professor Mark Wainwright AM, Chair Professor Lindsay Botten Director, National Computational Infrastructure Mr John Nicholls, Infrastructure Development Manager, AARNet Mr Steve Junor, Manager, Communications Services, USYD Mr Jim Leeper, Acting Delivery Services Manager, UNSW Mr Phil Roy, Director of Operations, ITS, CSU

5 Annual Report Chair s Report Emeritus Professor Mark S. Wainwright AM Intersect has had another very successful year and after only four years it has grown enormously from 3.5 staff in June 2008 to 55 in It is no longer a start-up organisation but a mature company with an annual turnover in the last financial year of around $6.7m. It has become the largest eresearch organisation in Australia. The company has now delivered 50 professional engineering projects, an expanding portfolio of services and is now developing major infrastructure services, particularly for data storage, as well as high performance computing. As well as supporting its members, the ten government-funded universities in NSW, Intersect has been invited to undertake a number of projects for other organisations in NSW and in other states. This reflects Intersect s leadership position in eresearch services nationally. This leadership is evident by such success as Intersect s involvement in 11 NeCTAR projects and major funding on the NSW node of the Research Data Storage Infrastructure. The latter has been strongly supported by a $1m grant by the NSW Government and significant support by the member universities. Co-investment in federally funded eresearch infrastructure programs by the NSW Government and Intersect s partner organisations has been a key element in the success of the company receiving major funding for a large number of projects. We are most grateful for the support of the Federal and NSW Governments and our partners. I particularly wish to thank the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer, Mary O Kane for her on-going support of Intersect. The success of Intersect is due to the great team of people who provide outstanding eresearch services to its members and partner organisations. Dr Ian Gibson, Intersect s CEO, has provided stellar leadership to the team again over the past year. He has led by example and has played major roles in national forums and committees. Ian and I are most grateful for the strong support of the members of the Board and its sub-committees. Finally, I wish to thank the NSW universities who have supported Intersect in its first four years for their commitment to ongoing membership. CEO s Report Dr Ian Gibson I am proud to present the latest Intersect Australia Annual Report. This is Intersect s fourth year of operation, and we are now firmly established as one of the most significant eresearch service providers in Australia. Our Engineering team has now developed and deployed dozens of successful projects providing quality support for research activities. It is interesting to see a significant increase in the demand for mobile applications. The next challenge will be for us to maximise the benefit from this body of work through reuse and redeployment. Our recent successes in helping our members secure project funding from NeCTAR mean that our Engineering team has much work ahead. The next big area for Intersect is our large investment in IT infrastructure. Through our involvement with the RDSI and NeCTAR projects, the replacement of our own high performance cluster and other projects we have started investing in close to $10m in computing and storage infrastructure. This will provide a significant capacity for the benefit of our members and their collaborating partners. Intersect has been active on the national scene, hosting the inaugural forum of Australian eresearch Organisations (AeRO). AeRO is working with CAUDIT and others to support eresearch Services across Australia. I thank Intersect s Chair Mark Wainwright, our Board of Directors and all those who have helped Intersect through our various committees. We have fantastic committee members who invest their time free-of-charge to help guide Intersect. I thank each and every one of Intersect s staff. Any success that Intersect enjoys is due to their dedication and effort. Lastly, I would like to thank Intersect s members and other clients who have chosen to work with us. Intersect strives to provide services that are value for money and that directly contribute to supporting the research outcomes of our partners. 5

6 Intersect Australia Ltd Intersect in the national context ANDS s aim is to partner to substantially improve the ability of researchers to publish, access, and use research data. It has established the Australian Research Data Commons as part of its goal of having managed, connected, discoverable and reusable research data collections. ANDS is partnering with other national data capabilities, with research institutions, and their eresearch providers. ANDS has been very pleased to have a strong partnership with Intersect in delivering this rich data capability. Around 80 research leaders, science agency representatives and departmental heads gathered at the Intersect showcase in September 2011 to discuss how Intersect is helping revolutionise the way research is conducted. (L to R): Prof Mary O Kane, NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer; Emeritus Prof Mark Wainwright AM, Chair of Intersect; Prof Les Field AM, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), UNSW; Gabrielle Upton MP, Parliamentary Secretary for Tertiary Education and Skills; and Dr Ian Gibson CEO of Intersect. Intersect continues to play an increasingly important role in the delivery of eresearch services within Australia. Intersect has built significant partnerships with Australia s NCRIS and EIF Super Science programs to deliver practical, tangible and valuable eresearch infrastructure and services to researchers in NSW and throughout Australia. eresearch services in Australia have been funded through a complex set of programs, organisations and projects. An important initiative started in 2012 by Intersect and others has been the creation of AeRO - Australian eresearch Organisations. AeRO has already had a significant impact in bringing together these organisations to plan out a systematic approach to service discovery and user support. Australian National Data Service Intersect works closely with the Australian National Data Service (ANDS). Half the income recognised by Intersect s Engineering Division for came from ANDS work comprising some 12 or so projects (for more see pages 16-17). This year also saw the assignment of two staff assisting ANDS outreach and community building at NSW universities. This enables Intersect to deliver workshops and consolidated reporting that are focused on meeting the needs of NSW partner institutions. By aligning the support for ANDS services with our Member Services activity, Intersect is ideally placed to identify synergies for our partners across institutional and national eresearch programs. Intersect was instrumental in identifying synergies between the ANDS Applications and NeCTAR Virtual Laboratory Programs, successfully facilitating funding for the NeCTAR Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory project (VL212). Dr Ross Wilkinson Director, ANDS National Computational Infrastructure The National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) is a key component in Intersect s service delivery strategy. Intersect has a partner share in the peak facilities at NCI. In addition to access to the NSW HPC, this provides our HPC users with two further tiers of resource allocation via the NCI partner share and the NCI Merit Allocation Scheme. Intersect also has an HPC specialist staff position co-funded by NCI. National Computational Infrastructure provides world-class, comprehensive infrastructure and services solutions that meet the high-end computational and data-intensive requirements of Australian researchers. Major infrastructure upgrades are in train in 2012, as are increases in expert support. From 1 January 2013, NCI will have commissioned Australia s first petaflop supercomputer, a Fujitsu Primergy cluster (with 57,000 cores, 160 TBytes of memory, and 12 PBytes of disk) alongside largescale compute cloud and petascale data storage in order to provide Australian researchers with an integrated services platform that is capable of addressing the most demanding of research questions that lead to the highest impact outcomes. Professor Lindsay Botten Director, National Computational Infrastructure Australian National University Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) Intersect s proposal to be the NSW RDSI node was successful and will be a game changer. RDSI is a $50 million Australian Government initiative, funded through the Super Science program. The goal of RDSI program is to provide data storage for nationally significant collections of research data, while incurring no cost on researchers. Intended to transform the way in which research data collections are stored and accessed, the Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) project announced the first of its nodes in June 2012, Intersect amongst them. 6

7 Annual Report The RDSI project aims to allow researchers to use and manipulate significant collections of data that were previously either unavailable or difficult to access. It will do this by investing in a small number of highly scalable nodes, such as Intersect, to enable them to store collections reliably and provide a consistent interface to the data. It is expected that there will be approximately 100PB of storage supported by RDSI. Dr Nick Tate Director, Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) Project National eresearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (NeCTAR) Intersect has collaborated extensively with members recently in bidding for National eresearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (NeCTAR) Virtual Laboratories and Research Tools. Intersect assisted members with a total of 27 proposals over the two calls. This assistance included technology advice, project scoping, and assisting consortia build their base of collaborators. Intersect s members were remarkably successful in securing NeCTAR projects with ten proposals funded by NeCTAR. Australian Access Federation Over the past year many NSW institutions have gone through the process of connecting to the Australian Access Federation (AAF). Intersect analysts worked with IT departments at several institutions to assist with connecting to the AAF, providing both technical and procedural expertise. Intersect hosted the first AeRO forum in Sydney in early 2012, approximately 60 representatives of Australasian eresearch providers were in attendance. Australian eresearch Organisations In 2012 the state based eresearch service providers, including Intersect, established the association of Australian eresearch Organisations, known as AeRO. AeRO organisations have agreed to work together to accelerate the development and adoption of eresearch practices, capabilities and standards in Australia. Several forums were held during 2012 and work has commenced on the first two priorities: The AeRO Working Group on Service Catalogues is examining requirements and possible approaches for a national online research services catalogue for Australia and its research community. The AeRO User Support Working Group is identifying a work program of practical improvements to research support services and structures achievable between December 2012 and June 2013 via AeRO and the Council of Australian University Directors of IT (CAUDIT). NCRIS capabilities Intersect has continued as a significant partner of NCRIS capability organisations such as Astronomy Australia Ltd, Population Health Research Network Infrastructure (PHRNi) and the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN). Our involvement with Astronomy Australia Ltd has developed from producing a concept design study to being a partner in the successful All-Sky Virtual Observatory, funded by NeCTAR. For more information go to aero.edu.au. eresearch Australasia Conference Intersect continues its active involvement in the annual eresearch Australasia conference, making numerous presentations, conducting workshops and Bird of Feather sessions, and as a sponsor of the event. Modern telescopes optimised for survey-science generate peta-bytes of data. In 2011 Astronomy Australia partnered with Intersect to help Australian astronomers maximise the science from these massive datasets. Intersect s technical skills and approach to software project management immediately brought an additional dimension to the skills within the Australian astronomy community. The first product from our joint endeavours will be available in 2013, giving enhanced access to both optical-telescope and simulation datasets. A Bird of Feather session at eresearch Australasia focussed on Selling our Services. eresearch providers shared their experience of raising the visibility and communicating the benefits of eresearch. (L to R): Leonie Hellmers, Intersect; Sarah Nisbet, eresearch SA; Patricia McMillan, CAUDIT; and Joe Thurbon, Intersect. Mark McAuley Chief Executive Officer, Astronomy Australia Ltd 7

8 Intersect Australia Ltd Infrastructure Services Data Storage High Performance Computing Terabytes Service Units 000s 100,000 60, ,000 30,000 25,000 35,000 10,000 1,000 1,500 Tape Disk 5,000 2,000 20,000 3,500 5,000 1,300 10,000 1,000 5,000 2,000 NCI Share Intersect HPC 14, High Speed mid-2013 mid-2014 mid NeCTAR Cloud Node 438 Intersect s infrastructure roadmap Intersect is midway through planning major infrastructure facilities for its members and Australian researchers. The building blocks are in place for a huge leap in service provision. Intersect s success in being chosen as an RDSI Node and as a NeCTAR Research Cloud Node are key parts of the larger plan. Intersect has reviewed its data centre hosting arrangements and is set to provide the best levels of service available. Intersect is planning to migrate to the new NSW State Government data centre to be built by Metronode at Silverwater. This will be one of the first certified Tier 3 facilities in Australia. The arrangement will deliver a powerful, energy efficient and economical platform over the coming years, while delivering the highest service levels and security requirements. Infrastructure services coming online include: 1. High Performance Computing Intersect is deploying Orange, the new SGI ICE_X_CGI High Performance Computer providing a 25 fold increase in compute power over its predecessor but using only twice the amount of power. Intersect also has a 4% member share of NCI, Australia s peak HPC facility, upgrading in 2013 to deliver 8 times the performance of the current peak system. See Upgraded HPC Facilities box (page 9). 2. Petascale Data Storage Intersect has been selected as a Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) node. This will provide members with direct access to up to 50 PBytes of research data storage capacity by 2015, a huge increase on current capacity. This significant piece of national infrastructure will be co-located with, and closely coupled to our HPC. Intersect has received $1.5m from RDSI to establish the node and will be eligible to access further funding and therefore further storage under the RDSI Research Data Stores (ReDS) program, leading to a total storage capacity approaching 50Pbytes. The NSW State Government has provided a further $1m towards this research infrastructure via the Science Leveraging Fund. 3. Virtual Machines and Elastic Computing Intersect has been selected as a NeCTAR Research Cloud node. Forming part of a national research cloud, researchers can take advantage of elastic compute resources which complement existing The NSW Government is looking forward to having Intersect Australia as the first non-government agency to take up residence in the Tier III data centre facility being constructed at Silverwater by Metronode as part of the NSW Government Data Centre Reform Project. The proximity of the High Performance Computing, multi-petabyte Storage and Research Cloud infrastructure which Intersect will be hosting at the centre will facilitate closer ties between State Government researchers and the eresearch community which Intersect represents. Pedro Harris Executive Director, ICT Strategic Delivery NSW Department of Finance and Services

9 Annual Report HPC services. The NeCTAR Research Cloud Node will be tightly coupled with the RDSI Storage Node offering researchers the opportunity to perform their data analysis and processing without unnecessarily transferring large amounts of data. Data held with Intersect is readily and quickly accessible on both the research cloud and Intersect s HPC facilities. HPC StatISTICS Number Number of projects granted time 176 Number of new projects this year 78 Total time used by projects 6.8 million CPU hours The $1,777,343 in funding from NeCTAR will address the emerging demand for these services from researchers and minimise, if not eliminate, the need for members to fund, acquire, establish and support their own equivalent infrastructure longer term. Number of software packages updated or installed for users Number of users who received significant/ongoing help In future, an increasing proportion of the scientific computing load is expected to migrate off mid-range HPC facilities to be met by commodity, elastic computing facilities i.e. cloud computing. RDSI and NeCTAR together provide Intersect and its members the means to move our scientific computing and data storage workload to more appropriate, cost effective cloud facilities. These facilities will be of significant strategic importance to our members as they will now have an extremely cost-effective option for providing research support services to researchers. Intersect has mapped out the future of research service provision for NSW researchers, and by accessing Federal and State infrastructure programs (ARC, SLF, NeCTAR, RDSI) is delivering a low cost foundation infrastructure. Upgraded HPC Facilities Orange, named after another great wine growing region, replaces former HPC McLaren in Q The SGI 30+ Tflop distributed memory cluster features 100 cluster nodes with 1600 cores, 101TB of usable shared storage delivering 33.3TFlops. Orange is funded through the ARC s LIEF scheme and member contributions. NCI s new peak system, also operational in Q1 2013, is a Fujitsu Primergy high-performance, distributed-memory, cluster based on 8-core processors (2.6 GHz) comprising: 57,472 cores in the compute nodes; 160 TBytes of main memory; and 10 PBytes of scratch space. This will provide a peak performance of 8.6 times the current NCI peak system. High Performance Computing Intersect s HPC facilities, McLaren and NCI s Vayu, offered researchers the computational capacity required for their research over the last year. Access to the facilities is via regular resource allocation rounds for large grants, and ad-hoc allocations for users wanting modest access to HPC for the first time. The Resource Allocation Committee is made up of representatives from each of Intersect s members. Last year we assisted researchers, working on 176 different projects, with all aspects of the HPC needs, including troubleshooting, advice, installation of software, experiment design, and administrative needs, see HPC statistics following. UOW 2.2% MQ 1. Comp Sci 0.5% Geophysics 1. Maths 0.4% McLaren UWS 17. UTS 21.8% USYD 18.3% NEWC 21.3% UNSW 18.4% Biology 10.3% Chemistry 6.3% Climate 8.8% Engineering 25.9% Material Science 14.3% Physics 27.5% Vayu USYD 38.3% UNSW 49.4% HPC usage by discipline UWS 2.1% UTS 4.5% UOW 1. NEWC 3.4% MQ 0.7% HPC usage by member for McLaren (left) and Vayu (right) Economy 3.6% Geography 0.5% Molecular Bio 0.7% 9

10 Intersect Australia Ltd Member Services Intersect s team of eresearch analysts pooling their resources at HQ The services team continues to comprise the team of ten eresearch Analysts, an HPC specialist, and two data management experts. The team engages with researchers and research-support groups to help improve the quality and quantity of research, by fostering and refining the use of eresearch practices. The over-arching theme of engagement this year was to focus on collaboration, both within the team and between researchers. NeCTAR The focal point of eresearch analyst activity this year has been collaborating with members to bid for NeCTAR Virtual Laboratories and Research Tools. The eresearch analyst team assisted consortia on a total of 27 proposals over the two calls. This assistance included technology advice, project scoping, and assisting consortia build their base of collaborators. Intersect was involved in the creation of ten of the 25 proposals funded by NeCTAR, and is the lead development partner on most of these ten. The coming year will see on-going engagement with these successful projects, including assistance with engineering, project governance, stakeholder management, and user uptake and training. Each of these activities furthers Intersect s collaboration with its members, building the next generation of eresearch infrastructure. Learning and Development The Learning and Development (L&D) initiative has grown from a single course offered at a single university, to a mature program comprising courses and round-tables delivered across our membership. Courses are created in response to our members needs, making use of existing material where possible. The L&D program is another example of the work of an eresearch analyst at their university being applied across the membership more broadly. We currently offer courses and online materials for introductory Linux, advanced HPC, parallel programming, Google s Refine tool, and eresearch induction. In 2013 we will expand the learning and development program, introduce new courses, and extend delivery of training across our membership. Learning & development StatisticS Value Number of training sessions delivered 13 Number of courses offered 4 Number of venues used 10 Number of researchers attended 143 Number of enrolments 446 Number of new courses developed 3 Number of new courses under development 2 Round tables held 6 Total number of round-table attendees approx. 150 Intersect Course Evaluation Yes Mostly Not at all 1. The course was worthwhile attending. 68.2% 31.8% 2. The course content was new to me. 54.5% 45.5% 3. Difficult material was explained clearly. 59.1% 40.9% 4. The exercises were useful in helping me understand the material. 54.5% 45.5% 5. I would recommend this course to colleagues I am now more likely to use this technology in my research

11 Annual Report Round Tables Round-tables complement our course offerings, and provide a forum for collaboration between subject-matter experts and those facing common problems. Round tables occur approximately every two months, and establish communities of practice around specific issues. Last year, six round-tables, focused on metadata stores and the ANDS Seeding the Commons projects, brought together two communities each of approximately 30 people. These round-tables facilitate genuine collaborations throughout the membership, and allow members to share their experience and knowledge. In 2013 we plan to expand the round-table programme to include groups focussed on eresearch management, visualisation, and survey tools. We welcome suggestions from our membership as to establishing round-tables that suit their interests. Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) During the year, eresearch Analysts worked with approximately 40 research groups to identify and characterise collections suitable for submission to the RDSI as nationally significant. We further identified approximately 80 research groups across the membership who will be able to make use of these collections. These collections formed a part of Intersect s successful RDSI NoDE application, and the coming year s effort will be focussed on analysing and storing the identified collections on the RDSI, and identifying new collections. Engagement The eresearch Analysts continue their program of engagement with our members. Day-to-day, eresearch Analysts engage with researchers and support staff to solve research problems, including: direct engagement with a small group of researchers; broadcast engagement, such as delivering or organising seminars; collaborative engagement with research groups from multiple universities or faculties, and who have common needs; co-ordinating responses to calls for participation from national eresearch bodies such as ANDS and NeCTAR; project based activities, identifying potential projects and shepherding them from requirements gathering to delivery; advocacy on behalf of researchers, by surveying the eresearch needs of researchers for presentation to institutional services such as ICT and the library; and advocacy to State and national programs, such as DIISRTE s Super Science data storage program, RDSI. eresearch Survey The first longitudinal survey into eresearch practices and attitudes in higher education opened in 2009 and was run again in Q More than 1800 participants have now taken part across the ten NSW universities. A clear gap remains between researchers willingness and their actual adoption of eresearch practices. Fundamental insights into low-emissions combustion Designing improved low-emissions gas-turbine combustors requires models for the surface area of turbulent flames. Flame surfaces exhibit a range of fractal scaling, i.e. they are so highly convoluted they appear to have a dimension between 2 and 3. We used massively parallel computations (up to 8,000 cores) to examine the fractal scaling and demonstrated that for sufficiently high turbulence levels, the fractal dimension approaches 8/3, contrary to the prevailing view that 7/3 is the upper limit. We have used this new information to develop improved models for combustion, which will give engineers the tools they need to optimise future low-emissions combustors. The Intersect partner allocation at Vayu was really essential for this work. Vayu has proved to be an excellent resource for running serious computations over 1000 cores, and an increasing component of our work requires this. We look forwards to the next generation of supercomputing at the NCI. Confidential university specific reports were provided to key parties at each participating campus in Q An aggregated report is available online at Exploring structure property correlations in advanced materials Our work exploring structure property relationships in light metals is establishing the foundations to optimise their engineering performance. Increasing the strength, load bearing capacity and reducing the weight of metals such as aluminium, magnesium and titanium will have tremendous benefits in the energy requirements and environmental impact of the structural engineering and manufacture of transport vehicles in particular. The computational resources Intersect provides are critical to simulating and modeling the structures of these materials and radically reduce development cycle times and costs in materials, leading to the ability to design advanced materials with given combinations of mechanical properties. Associate Professor Evatt Hawkes Australian Research Council Future Fellow School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering University of New South Wales Prof. Simon P. Ringer Executive Director and CEO, Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility (AMMRF), University of Sydney 11

12 Intersect Australia Ltd Intersect s Services Catalogue Intersect s catalogue of services evolves to meet the ongoing needs of our members and other partners. Consultation and Advice Researcher Engagement eresearch Analysts engage directly with researchers to assist across eresearch areas of collaboration, computing, data management and domain-specific tools. Requirements Analysis eresearch and business analysts work with researchers to determine which of their research bottlenecks can be addressed by the application of information technology, and how to best address those bottlenecks. HPC Advice and Support Our in-house HPC specialist works with researchers to troubleshoot and configure existing tools to work on our HPC infrastructure, as well as to help them design their experiments to make best use of the facilities. Project Conceptualisation and Grant Assistance eresearch analysts assist in taking a project from the concept phase to a formal description and plan, suitable for submission to grant or infrastructure funding bodies. Learning and Development Training eresearch analysts develop and deliver training material, customised to the needs of the audience. Last year, we developed HPC training courses, and have under development courses in machine learning, data management, and Google s Refine analysis package. Self-paced Material Intersect develops and publishes guides on common tools and techniques, including EVO, collaborative authoring and revision control, and BOINC. Training courses are also published as self-paced learning material. Technology Recommendations Intersect eresearch analysts endorse and support specific tools, based on the experience of the analysts and the researchers with whom they engage. Collaboration and Networking Round Tables Intersect analysts work with researchers to develop communities of practice around special research needs. Intersect hosts and manages meetings with the community, allowing the community to train each other. 12

13 Annual Report Intersect s Services Catalogue Professional Services Software Projects Our software engineers, user-interface designers, testers and analysts work with project custodians to deliver software as specified by the custodians. Skilled Staff Intersect employs a team of approximately 30 professional staff, including software engineers, test engineers, user-interface designers and project managers. This provides significant capacity and flexibility to deliver both projects and professional services to our members. These staff are available to members to provide targeted skills on members projects. Business Analysis Our teams of analysts work with Institutes and research groups to assess their current circumstances and plot the course for the future. The analysis can focus on the most valuable area to the client and might include: gap analysis; workflow assessment; pain-point identification; assessment of technology stacks; architectural design; or systems analysis. User-interface Design Our user-interface experts work in conjunction with your project team to provide user experience capability. Software Testing Our software testing experts work with your project teams to design and or implement a testing regime that will deliver appropriate quality assurance for your software project. Hosted Services Virtual Machines/ Cloud Computing Our operations staff and analysts work with researchers to deliver cloud-based delivery of research applications. Choose from our standard portfolio of: applications, including wikis; version control and issue tracking; customise and brand existing third party tools; or work with our engineering team to develop and deploy bespoke software. This will be delivered through Intersect s node of the NeCTAR Research Cloud. High Performance Computing Intersect provides access to both State and national high performance computing facilities. Large requests are handled through our annual resource allocation process, and smaller requests on an ad-hoc basis. Cloud Storage Store your research data on Intersect s RDSI node. Our operations staff and analysts work with researchers to understand and implement storage, access methods and authentication to the data. Data held with Intersect is readily and quickly accessible on both the research cloud and Intersect s HPC facilities. This service will be available in late

14 Intersect Australia Ltd Engineering Overview Intersect worked on 29 projects of significant size this financial year. 65% of engineering work was on software development projects managed by Intersect. The remaining 35% was in supplying consultants to our customers and partners. Monitoring and Measurement This year a subcommittee of the Intersect estrategy and Services committee (ess), the Engineering Reuse Committee (ERC), was established to advise Intersect on how to maximise reuse of engineering artefacts to the maximum extent desirable. Consultancy 35% Development 65% Around half of the income recognised came through ANDS work. In addition 27% came through other NCRIS initiatives with a further 21% through direct member project work. NCRIS 27% ANDS 47% Member 21% Making the right technology choice at the start of a project is essential to success. The needs of the customer are the most important consideration and sometimes customers are bound to a technology platform. In other situations there is more opportunity to choose the best technology to meet the range of considerations such as existing solutions, maintainability and speed to market. Perl 13% Nectar 1% Grails 2% Mobile 4% Affiliate 2% Commercial Services 2% Rails 37% Java 3 Django 14% Intersect is constantly assessing its performance and seeking ways to improve. The strategies outlined here are intended to improve the value and efficiency of our engineering projects and increase member capability. One of the first outputs of this committee is a determination to quantify the extent of reuse on each project. We are currently developing and will shortly publicise that information. In addition the intention is to set goals for software reuse at a project level. Creating and linking communities We actively seek to broaden the stakeholder base at the start of projects and link development communities. The objective of this activity is to provide a better understanding of opportunities for reuse and more sustainable funding. Promoting software Intersect makes public information on our completed projects and is making this more widely available to encourage higher reuse of these technologies. In addition we will establish NeCTAR virtual machines of completed projects to help potential users get a real experience of the solution. We believe that these strategies will benefit our members and the eresearch community in Australia and consequently aid Intersect s vision to improve research. There will be changes in some of our processes, but there are two things that will not change: We will continue to have a primary focus on the customer, and in particular, on understanding their needs and working with them to develop solutions that meet those needs. We will continue to deliver high quality solutions through the utilisation of solid, professional software engineering practices. Strategies for Software Reuse Software reuse, that is the use of existing software, or software knowledge, to create new software, is and has been a critical part of Intersect s software engineering process and is essential to ensuring that we deliver efficient, low cost and maintainable solutions. Some of our projects such as the MeCAT and NSW TARDIS (DC2C) are based on the Tardis, the Microbial Imaging Facility (DC18A) is based on ReDBox, and the software reuse is obvious. In the remainder of our projects a substantial proportion of our software is reused code from third party libraries or from Intersect s growing repository of source code including from our libraries. Intersect actively encourages members to use and reuse our software, the vast majority of which is open source. We also encourage members and others to use and contribute to projects. Why use Intersect for project work? Intersect was established to provide ongoing eresearch services that were previously absent. We have: expertise in systems analysis, requirements gathering, architectural design, user interface design, engineering, project management and quality assurance; broad experience in delivering quality IT projects; a company culture of engineering excellence; an engineering division of 25 permanent staff enabling rapid deployment and ongoing support; a focus on and understanding of research needs; eresearch analysts on the ground to support projects; easy formal arrangements - as part of Intersect membership there s no need for additional contracts. 14

15 Annual Report Projects The following projects have been identified with their primary research discipline as below: Health & Medical Research Biosciences Astronomy Physical Sciences Environment Humanities & Social Sciences Characterisation & Imaging Data & Metadata Management Australian Access Federation Intersect has designed and developed the database application Supporting portable credentials to contain, manage and enhance the Building Value project data. Over the past year many NSW institutions have gone through The database system provides users with unprecedented analysis the process of connecting to the Australian Access Federation. options to determine the best value for money spent on school Intersect has worked with IT departments at several institutions to infrastructure. UNSW directs the consortium which includes help connect to the AAF, providing both technical and procedural the Building Cost Information Service of the Royal Institution of expertise. Chartered Surveyors, Queensland University of Technology, the University of Melbourne and Intersect. AustLII Intersect has completed a mobile application for the Australasian Streamlined management of large volumes of data Legal Information Institute (AustLII). AustLII for Android enables The Breast Cancer Microscopy Project allowed streamlined lawyers, law students and anyone interested in the law to access management of large volumes of image data and serving of legal information wherever they are. Intersect s work builds on banked breast tissue images to the research community. The the iphone/ ipad app developed by AustLII and Adelaide company human breast is a complex organ comprising a rich mix of Hessian Apps. The app works on both phones and tablets and is different cell types with specialized functions. Breast cancers available from the Android market. AustLII is a joint facility of the arise from just a subset of those cell types and evaluation of UTS and UNSW Faculties of Law. stained breast tissue slides forms a cornerstone of the study of Providing skilled development staff this malignancy. In a study to understand the impact of hormone exposure on the cell type balance in premalignant and malignant lesions we confirmed that, with progression to more malignant states, normal cell type balance is progressively disrupted. Moreover, there was evidence that hormone exposure contributed to that disruption. Hormone replacement therapy is implicated in breast cancer development and this study provides insight into that influence. Several manuscripts describing aspects of the Intersect project are being or have been submitted to Diagnostic Pathology, Histology and Histopathology. A Building Value Online visualisation of construction project duration by funding category Dinny Graham, PhD Building Value Westmead Institute for Cancer Research, Realistic costs of building University of Sydney The Building Value project delivers a sophisticated IT system for the storage and management of historic benchmarking data Electronic Practice-Based Research Network based initially on the Building the Education Revolution (BER) Clinical data research program of school infrastructure projects. The BER P21 program is The Electronic Practice Based Research Network (epbrn) project delivering over 10,000 projects in more than 7,000 schools across is based at the UNSW Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity. Australia, and the Building Value project will derive statistically valid Its aim is to establish the epbrn as a virtual lab to develop, test and comparative data on the cost, value and quality of those projects. share eresearch tools to support accurate and high quality research 15

16 Intersect Australia Ltd on chronic illness prevention & management. Intersect was involved in analysing the methods and tools used in this virtual lab project, in order to confirm their viability. The successful achievement of this objective is potentially significant in terms of sharing existing information for conducting high-quality multi-centre research and evaluation in primary care. The project has established the tools and methodology and is now recruiting beyond the pilot phase, focused on a south west Sydney epbrn and planning for a NSW-wide epbrn. SA NT Datalink Project management on Next Gen Linkage Systems Intersect provided project management support to SA NT DataLink for their Next Generation Linkage Systems project which will deliver a metadata repository, an online process for researchers to submit applications to access research data, and significantly improved linkage and clerical review capabilities. Fight Retinal Blindness Measuring macular degeneration treatments This University of Sydney research project is investigating the safety, effectiveness and possible adverse outcomes of new treatments for macular degeneration (such as injections into the eye). The risks and benefits of these new treatments are being tracked in participating ophthalmic practices. A fundamental issue for health care providers is whether the interventions they support actually benefit patients both in clinical terms and from the patient s perspective. Intersect provided software support on the project. The foundation of future health care The CareTrack Australia study is the foundation on which future health care standards can be built. The findings allow us to target areas in our health care systems requiring improvement therefore achieving better health outcomes for patients and more efficient allocation of already stretched health budgets. It is only the second such study in the world. Australia has a good health system by international standards. Although it is a complex system there are areas which can be improved to enable our system to be a world leader. The CareTrack Australia study is a platform for improving health care and offers a blueprint for the future of the Australian health system. Knowing where the gaps are directs us to areas where we can begin to make improvements. Tamara Hunt Project Manager, CareTrack Australia, University of South Australia Population Health Research Network infrastructure Guaranteeing privacy, strengthening research The PHRN-i project has established infrastructure to provide NSW & ACT researchers with a remotely accessible secure work space and tools that enables analysis of de-identified data from a diverse range of health data sources. In particular, the Secure Unified Research Environment (SURE) is a virtual laboratory environment providing researchers with a set of tools to analyse linked health data. This last year Intersect provided support services to build the production systems including specifying hardware, producing the detailed network design, security configuration, multi-factor authentication, setting up the external facing website, establishing Confluence and JIRA support for SURE, quality assurance and performance benchmarking. Federation of National Astronomy Datasets An articulated vision Astronomy Australia Ltd, (AAL) contracted Intersect to produce a concept design study and a fully costed five-year plan to create and sustain a federated network of astronomy datasets. The final report presents an articulated vision of how Australian astronomers will ideally conduct day-to-day data intensive activities in 3-5 years. The aim is to maximise the scientific return from investment in facilities and position Australian astronomy as a technology leader. The five-year plan to create and sustain a federated network of astronomy data was accepted by Astronomy Australia Ltd Board following consultation with the nation s astronomers. Intersect subsequently assisted AAL in proposing the first phase for implementation as a NeCTAR virtual laboratory project. The All- Sky Virtual Observatory project was successful in being selected by NeCTAR to receive first round funding. All-Sky Virtual Observatory Linking observational and theoretical capabilities A new facility currently being created, the All-Sky Virtual Observatory (ASVO) will provide a direct and vital link between the theoretical and observational aspects of data collection and analysis. Development is a collaborative effort between AAL, the National Computational Infrastructure, Swinburne University of Technology and Intersect. The All-Sky Virtual Observatory will: provide access and add functionality to key astronomical resources of national significance; link observational data archives and theoretical infrastructure capabilities in an innovative fashion, enabling new approaches to astronomical research; and establish a platform from which to optimally exploit the exponential growth in astronomical data in the coming decade. 16

17 Annual Report UNE Herbarium Sharing herbaria via the internet The N.C.W. Beadle Herbarium project created a new web-based herbarium system to manage the life cycle of plant specimens at the University of New England s internationally recognised N.C.W. Beadle Herbarium, making this significant collection of nearly 100,000 plant specimens far more discoverable, and its database more usable and manageable. The new web-based relational database provides easy access for multiple users, with defined privileges, both on and off campus. Authorised users are able to edit data, to enter new specimens records which conform to Australian HISCOM standards and output the data in the range of required formats for production of labels, interrogation of data, delivery of data across the web. Observers use a portable device running the Android application WOMBAT to record tasks doctors and nurses carry out. Intersect developed software and user interface designs for the tablet devices. Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Managing natural resource data Aiming to meet the data management needs of scientists at the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), we have provided pragmatic and robust solutions to dovetail with their existing work practices. Undiscoverable datasets affect OEH scientists and their managers, resulting in duplicated research efforts and wasted time searching. Intersect has made basic information about OEH projects searchable and therefore discoverable to OEH scientists. WOMBAT Research collection via a tablet Intersect has delivered an electronic data collection tool in collaboration with the Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research at the UNSW. The Work Observation Method by Activity Timing (WOMBAT) measures clinicians complex patterns of work and communication which traditional paper-based data collection methods are unable to capture. The WOMBAT allows observers to accurately record the tasks a doctor or nurse carries out during a time period. Observers use a portable device running an Android application, uploading data to a web application. The speed of data input and ease of use are critical due to the high rate at which tasks change. This required a carefully designed user interface. The tool allows efficient, accurate and reliable data collection, and captures greater degrees of work complexity than previously possible. Research collection via a tablet The Intersect re-design of our work observation method by activity timing (WOMBAT) from a personal digital assistant to tablet and web application has created new research opportunities due to the improved functionality. The WOMBAT tool can now be applied to a wide range of research questions and is already being used by research teams internationally. The new tablet version ie WOMBAT 2.0 developed in conjunction with Intersect is currently being used by a UK team of researchers to study ophthalmologists work in glaucoma clinics. Professor Johanna Westbrook Director, Centre for Health Systems & Safety Research, UNSW Engineering economies of scale Intersect can provide a value and capability that individual research groups may find difficult to achieve internally, by: using optimised software and systems engineering and project management processes; tracking and identifying IT trends and their application to eresearch; finding existing or adaptable solutions from a wide range of research disciplines and industries, avoiding re-inventing the wheel; building a portfolio of technologies that can be rapidly deployed to solve problems; giving members rights to use, adapt and otherwise maximise the intellectual property (including source code) of work by Intersect for their own purposes; delivering savings on development ( build once, use often ) that can be spent on project specific elements or research; and providing economic, robust and reliable solutions quickly. 17

18 Intersect Australia Ltd ANDS Projects Intersect provides support for the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) through the assignment of two staff (at 1.2 FTE) who assist with ANDS project outreach and community building at NSW universities. This enables Intersect to deliver workshops and consolidated reporting that are focused on meeting the needs of NSW partner institutions. comprises web service interface, data validation software, and data repository components. By aligning the support for ANDS services with our Member Services activity, Intersect is ideally placed to identify synergies for our partners across institutional and national eresearch programs. Intersect was, for instance, instrumental in identifying synergies between the ANDS Applications Program and NeCTAR Virtual Laboratory Program, successfully facilitating funding for the NeCTAR Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory. The following projects were supported by ANDS. ANDS is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy Program and the Education Investment Fund (EIF) Super Science Initiative. Agriculture and environmental data (DC2D) Capturing data from different sensors The University of Sydney s Faculty of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources has five projects focusing on data capture. A standardsbased interoperable body of data was built, covering data from sensors on soil, water and rain, greenhouse gas and carbon data, and weather. The project developed generic and extensible tools integrating standards across the projects. Intersect developed a modular toolkit extensible to different disciplines. Biomechanics Data Capture (DC10A) Increasing discoverability and reusability This software assists researchers in the Biomechanics laboratory within the Faculty of Heath and Behavioural Science at the University of Wollongong to organise data collected from specialised equipment, build meaningful descriptions about the data, permanently store the data/descriptions and publish the descriptions to the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC). Data Management Policy Guide (SC11) Identify, collect, share The Seeding the Commons project for Macquarie University is: 1. investigating the best solution for data and metadata storage 2. auditing research data collections held by the Faculty of Business & Economics and the Faculty of Arts to be assessed, catalogued and published into the ARDC; 3. developing data management guidelines and support material for researchers. A review will explore the most appropriate mechanisms to expand the tools and skills developed during the project to the whole of Macquarie University. Australia and New Zealand Neonatal Network Data Capture Project (DC5G) Secure environment and maintenance tools This project for UNSW has developed a data collection web service interface for Australian and New Zealand Neonatal Network (ANZNN), which collects data through its member network of neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) and neonatal units (NUs). Data are used primarily to provide quality assurance of this type of care. The Project includes complete data entry application which Metadata Aggregator (DC2F) Collecting the collections The Metadata Aggregator project makes it possible for University of Sydney researchers to reveal their data collections to other researchers in Australia and internationally, to increase collaboration, and publications. It also enables easy and responsible data management practices for researchers. This project delivered: an online interface to the Sydney Research Data Store; a mechanism for Sydney researchers to advertise their research data sets for re-use by others; the ability to search for research data by metadata; mechanisms through which researchers are able to share their data via permissions; access to information on a trove of research data for the international research community; time and cost savings by reducing the amount of unnecessary recapture of research data. 18

19 Annual Report Microscopy Data Capture & Deposit (DC2E) Extending the AMMRF Data Management System Data, and metadata management is becoming an increasing issue for experimental researchers utilising advanced microscope platforms. Data sizes are increasing and are difficult to manage on existing systems. The Data Management System (DMS) at the University of Sydney node of the AMMRF, the Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis (ACMM), was developed by Intersect as part of the National eresearch Architecture Taskforce AMMRF Platforms for Collaboration project. This system enables the ingest and management of microscopy imaging data and metadata with the ability for researchers to publish data to the ARDC. Microbial Imaging Facility (DC18A) Capturing the experimental record The goal for this project is to help researchers at the Microbial Imaging Facility at UTS to reliably capture metadata related to microscopy imaging sessions. The lack of basic metadata collection at microscopy image acquisition time impacts researchers and administrators via data loss; complicated reporting and duplicated data collection. The software will: capture crucial metadata concerning the project, experiment, session and active user at microscope login time; report on microscopy utilisation to facility administrator; and provide basic metadata to ANDS Research Data Australia to facilitate reuse. Spectral Library (DC10) Exposing spectral datasets This University of Wollongong project facilitates the collation and sharing of spectral datasets amongst the national remote sensing community to promote long-term usability and data sharing. Thousands of legacy spectral libraries exist amongst multidisciplinary communities, consisting of spectra captured from a variety of instruments. These data are extremely valuable yet are not discoverable by others. The aim of this project is to develop a national central repository to house spectral libraries and associated metadata. The software deliverables will be of use to other research groups who also have spectral databases. Hawkesbury Institute of the Environment (DC21) Supporting research into climate change impact on ecosystems The UWS Environmental Sensor Data Capture project will support the cell-to-ecosystem focused research being conducted by researchers at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, UWS. This project is developing the data architecture and associated software systems to automatically capture data and metadata from three local sensor networks. Resultant research data collections will be harvested by Research Data Australia (RDA) and made generally available on the ANDS RDA website. ExSite9 (EIF09) Metadata capture on site Built for the University of Sydney, ExSite9 is a tool for optimising fieldwork data description and preparing submissions to institutional repositories. It facilitates better management and documentation of research data close to creation. An easy to use interface enables researchers to capture metadata that meets their research needs and potentially match the requirements for repository ingestion. Recognising that field research often takes place with either limited or no Internet access, the tool will run offline and output data that can readily be backed up or transferred to a repository. NSW TARDIS (DC2C) Establishing a NSW node of a metadata store For the University of Sydney Intersect established a NSW node of the Monash Protein Crystallography TARDIS system for use by participating instruments in NSW and other interstate and global institutions, to store data and metadata in a single secured centralised location. The DC2C project enables: participating instruments in NSW to store their data, in particular their level 1 raw macromolecular or protein crystallography diffraction images data at a single, secured, centralised NSW TARDIS node; researchers to access and re-use the stored raw data (subject to embargos) from the NSW TARDIS node into the future. MeCAT (EIF037) Metadata management for neutron beam instruments This project provides a metadata database and search service to the neutron beam science community allowing researchers to discover and exploit data collected by the neutron beam instruments at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). ANSTO now has a system with upgraded workflow, increased automation and improved access to the experimental data produced by the instruments. The system provides secure storage, secure and manageable access and search functionality. The metadata will be harvested by ANDS and published in the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC). The project is part of a broader initiative involving the Australian Synchrotron. 19

20 Intersect Australia Ltd How Intersect is viewed Intersect values the opinions of those with whom we interact. While we endeavour to deliver professional quality services, we believe there is always room to improve. One way in which we seek feedback is by surveying our clients at the conclusion of project work. We will increasingly seek your valuable feedback, but meantime here are the results to date. Intersect Project Satisfaction Survey Results Yes Mostly Not at all 1. The technology or tool that Intersect delivered met our stated needs. Working with Intersect Survey Results Excellent Adequate Poor 1. Rank the quality of Intersect s project delivery, re: a) Industry/marketplace knowledge 57.1% 42.9% b) Understanding research requirements 71.4% 28.6% c) Meeting milestones and deadlines 57.1% 42.9% d) Working with the client and their team 77.8% 22.2% 71.4% 28.6% 2. The technology or tool that Intersect delivered was reliable. e) Meeting overall project objectives % 14.3% 3. The technology or tool that Intersect delivered is easy to use and navigate. 2. Rank the following qualities as delivered by Intersect, re: a) Quality of responses to client s questions and concerns 62.5% 37.5% The technology or tool that Intersect delivered is robust (recovers well, alerts users of invalid input, etc). 87.5% 12.5% 5. Rate the capabilities of the tool, re: Excellent Adequate Poor b) Timeliness of responses to client s needs 71.4% c) The expertise of Intersect s staff % a) Ease of data entry d) The professionalism of Intersect s staff 66.7% 33.3% 85.7% 14.3% b) Accommodation of multiple users e) Keeping the client informed of progress 88.9% 11.1% 57.1% 42.9% c) User friendliness f) Delivery time 55.6% 44.4% 71.4% 28.6% d) Security 66.7% 33.3% 6. This software has been useful to my day to day research. 3. The Intersect team: a) Was easy to work with Yes Mostly Not at all % 11.1% b) Communicates the process clearly 7. The tool s functionality is used on a frequent basis. 71.4% 28.6% 8. The tool is easy to learn to operate. 88.9% 11.1% c) Communicates the deliverables clearly 57.1% 42.9% 77.8% 22.2% d) Communicates progress updates regularly 9. I would recommend this software to my colleagues e) Delivers value for money % 28.6%

21 Annual Report Financial Report Profit & Loss Budget vs Actual Consolidated July 2011 through June 2012 BUDGET $ OVER BUDGET Income Membership Subscription Fees 2,470,000 10,000 PFC Consulting 245,104 35,179 Full Member Project Fees 831, ,008 Affiliate Member Project Fees 240, ,817 ANDS Project Fees 1,200, ,035 NECTAR Project Fees 0 38,328 NCRIS Project Fees 1,387, ,956 Commercial Services 150,000-38,426 Hosting Fees 10,000 2,297 Other Research Projects 100, ,000 Interest Income 60,000-24,530 Other Income 20,000-6,084 RDSI SLF Income 0 240,000 RDSI Member Contribution 0 265,000 RDSI Income 0 100,000 RDSI Interest Income 0 44,145 Recharges Income 0 12,530 Total Income 6,713, ,308 Gross Profit 6,713, ,308 Expense Wages & Salaries 4,973, ,482 Travelling Expenses 92,500 24,615 Office Expenses 363,392-7,570 Data Centre Expenses 760,923 12,275 Depreciation 171,773-32,843 Telephone & Internet 54,048-10,273 Accountancy & Audit Fees 144,100 7,171 Computer Expenses 27,500 1,552 Staff Training 30,000-5,441 Memberships & Subscriptions 8,100 49,634 Insurance 37, Marketing & Promotions 45,000-25,202 Total Expense 6,707, ,506 Net Income 5,785 12,198 21

22 Intersect Australia Ltd Intersect Facts & Figures Intersect s work by research discipline ( ) Other 1% Material Sciences 7% Humanities & Social Sciences 14% Environment 8% Biosciences 12% Engineering 13% Health & Medical Research 13% Economics 2% Physical Sciences 15% Characterisation & Imaging 6% Data & Metadata Management 6% Astronomy 3% Where the money comes from Staff numbers at June 30 ( ) State Government Federal Government Engineers eresearch Analysts Systems Admin Commercial Member Interest Management Administration % 21% 42% % % 8% 36% 48% 1% 22% 11% 59% 4 53% 1% % 2% 1% 22

23 Annual Report The Intersect Team Contact Intersect s & Phone Numbers Where to find us General Enquiries T F eresearch Analysts era@intersect.org.au High Performance Computing hpc_support@intersect.org.au Human Resources hr@intersect.org.au Level 12, 309 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000 Annual Report Intersect Australia Ltd ABN Mail to: PO Box H58 Australia Square Sydney NSW