Minutes eresearch Coordination Group 18 July 2014

Transcription

1 Minutes eresearch Coordination Group 18 July 2014 Venue: UNSW Canberra Meeting No. 26 opened am 1. Welcome and apologies Present: Professor Mark Hoffman Professor Greg Leslie (Chair) Professor Hans Riesen Mr Newton Braga A/Professor Andrew Neely A/Professor Ruhul Sarker Professor Sean Smith Ms Fiona Wright Mr Michael Kirby-Lewis Professor Elizabeth Chang Dr Kieran Sharpe Mr Philip Chung Ms Tobie Garrick Ms Janet Fletcher Dr Scott Sharpe Dr Jason Sharples Dr Hua Wang Ms Kate Carruthers Dr Ed Lewis Dr Maude Frances Mr Luc Betbeder-Matibet Dr Shane Cox Ms Ingrid Mason (ANDS) Apologies: Ms Lena Caruso Ms Sharon Ryall Professor Laura Poole-Warren A/Professor Grainne Moran Professor Marc Wilkins Dr Guy Tsafnat Professor Andy Pitman A/Professor Duncan McDuie-Ra Minutes of Meeting prepared by Maude Frances Page 1

2 Professor Chris Tinney Ms Toni Hodge Dr Shawn Ross Mr Andrew Wells Ms Susan Lafferty Dr Ian Gibson (Intersect) 2. Minutes of 25 rd meeting, 9 May 2014 Amendment to Section 8: Intersect has hired a new Chief Operating Officer Marc Bailey. As amended, the Minutes of Meeting of 9 May 2014 were accepted as a true and accurate record. 3. Business arising not otherwise on agenda No business arising not otherwise on agenda. 4. Pro Vice-Chancellor s comments Professor Mark Hoffman thanked Canberra attendees for hosting the meeting. He noted that the area of computational research is developing including storing data. Pervasive changes, across disciplines, require a lot of money and infrastructure. Professor Hoffman acknowledged the contribution of organisations, including ANDS and Intersect, in linking researchers to capabilities. Researchers have requirements to store data in easily recoverable ways. Nationally, there have been initiatives for this, and at UNSW we have infrastructure to support all researchers. He noted that the infrastructure is easy enough to build the challenge is to link researchers to it. This cross disciplinary group is needed to get researchers together to coordinate these initiatives. 5. eresearch activities at UNSW Canberra Professor Greg Leslie provided an overview of previous presentations on UNSW eresearch activities. a. Brief overview of UNSW Canberra Professor Hans Riesen presented an overview of UNSW Canberra, including institutional demographics and major research activities. Discussion following the presentation raised the following issues: A/Professor Andrew Neely Because of limited resources within UNSW Canberra for research methods comparing experimental data there is a need to go elsewhere. Infrastructure is needed for sharing data outside the University. Mr Michael Kirby-Lewis talked about UNSW IT work with Translational Cancer Research Network (TCRN), who needed to establish secure storage for tissue samples, with links to patient data. In response to Professor Neely, he acknowledged problems with sharing data outside trusted identities, and reported that there is continuing work on the issue. A/Professor Ruhul Sarker stated that researchers need to provide access to research material as supplementary to publications. Ms Janet Fletcher suggested Minutes of Meeting prepared by Maude Frances Page 2

3 that supplementary material can be deposited, with publications, in UNSWorks, the UNSW open access repository for research output b. Australian Centre for Cyber Security presentation Presentations from Dr Ed Lewis and A/Professor Rahul Sarker were delivered after Item 7 (presentation slides provided for dissemination with minutes). 6. UNSW research data storage a. Objectives and overview Professor Hoffman reported that UNSW is building research data storage. Currently it is archival storage but active storage will come later. Access to storage is through a web interface. The project is being undertaken by UNSW IT and Library, with Division of Research as the owner. To use the service, a researcher logs on, develops a research data management plan, then loads the data. The project has been going for more than a year, initially with four groups. A research support specialist (Dr Shane Cox) is bringing additional early adopters on board, who are now using the service without much help. This needs to be how it is done with minimal hand-holding. Big data at risk will be brought on next, and eventually it will opened up for all research staff. The intention is to open to all staff by the end of the year (2014). Research students need to be treated differently because they may own the data and may not want to share all data with supervisors. The Research Data Management Plan (RDMP) is a major part of the service researchers need to think about how they are going to manage data. Mr Luc Betbeder-Matibet stated that the RDMP is a do-it-yourself tool for adding people to research spaces. It is a living document which provides metadata about the data, which are used in conversations with Library and IT support staff. The store is long-term, with a no deletion policy. b. UNSW eresearch Support Specialist report Dr Cox reported that the service is an institutional approach to managing data, noting that just as the University provides office space, and equipment to do the research and gather data, it needs to provide infrastructure for managing data. He noted that if we had better systems for research data management in place we could do more research. In response to a question (A/Professor Neely) about storage capacity, Dr Cox reported that there are currently three petabytes, and that it is incumbent on researchers to decide what needs to be stored. Ms Kate Carruthers suggested that we need to be able to manage version control. Professor Hoffman expressed concern about large numbers of people who have data, publications and grants, but have not thought about archiving and storing data. Mr Kirby-Lewis stated that there are options for both extending quantity and for different models of storage. We are not limited to 3PB of storage ongoing. Dr Cox added that we do not yet have a good idea of how much data there is, and how big the store needs to be in the future. A/Professor Neely suggested that researchers need to get into the rigour of storing data that are used in publications. Mr Philip Chung queried the policy of not being able to delete data from the store. Dr Cox explained that the delete function was turned off to prevent users from Minutes of Meeting prepared by Maude Frances Page 3

4 deleting by mistake. Mr Chung suggested that the no delete policy may discourage people from loading data to the store. He strongly advised that the policy be changed. Dr Cox stated that storage policies will comply with ethics requirements and other storage requirements of research projects. Mr Betbeder- Matibet reported that advice was sought from the Business Advisory Group for the project and that the policy enabled discovery of source data. Dr Jason Sharples asked a question about transferring data from NCI to UNSW data storage. Dr Cox responded that there are ways to do this but that they have not yet been tested. c. Provisions for HDR candidates Mr Betbeder-Matibet reported that HDR candidates will be able to access the store next year, using a specific RDMP on the same tool that is used by research staff. The store has two storage options: onsite and RDSI (Research Data Storage Infrastructure). We are working on automation of storage space based at intersect. The Library RDMP interface will be the front end for a number of storage options. Professor Riesen stated that it is important that HDR candidates are forced to do the right procedures for data management, and that they store their data in an appropriate way, so that academic staff can access and reproduce data after the HRD candidate leaves. Dr Cox reported that he is having a conversation with GRS about training students at induction. Professor Hoffman added that supervisors have responsibility to train students properly, and that supervisors need to be aware of procedures for managing data. He noted that students retain IP and the original data. In response to a question about postgraduate work done with a CRC where the CRC owns the data, Dr Cox responded that the RDMP accounted for this scenario. Professor Leslie added that such procedures will be part of HDR induction for new projects. 7. UNSW Library a. Digital Library Services The report was presented by Ms Janet Fletcher on behalf of Ms Susan Lafferty (report tabled) Professor Riesen asked about planned improvements to the Research Gateway, suggesting that it would be good to avoid duplication and have one source of information. Professor Hoffman reported that sources of truth for researcher profiles are being addressed in the upgrade of the Research Gateway. b. ANDS Projects Dr Maude Frances reported that proposals for two ANDS Major Open Data Collection (MODC) projects have been submitted to ANDS: MCO Study Database (Translational Cancer Research Network, Faculty of Medicine), National Waterbirds and Wetlands Database (Centre for Ecosystem Science, Faculty of Science). Total funding to UNSW from ANDS MODC Program is $200,000. The projects are scheduled to commence by 1 September 2014, with a final report due for delivery to ANDS on 29 May Intersect No report 9. Next meeting Minutes of Meeting prepared by Maude Frances Page 4

5 12 September 2014, UNSW Sydney SIGNED AS A TRUE RECORD. Professor Greg Leslie Dated: Minutes of Meeting prepared by Maude Frances Page 5