Abstracts
The Australian National Data Service: Positioning Australia For A Data-Intensive Research Future
Monday 4 May 2009, 1400 – 1430
Presenter: Dr. Ross Wilkinson,
Australian National Data Service, VIC
Presenter Biography
Dr. Ross Wilkinson is the executive director of the Australian National Data Service, dedicated to ensuring more researchers re-use data more often.
His research career commenced with his Ph. D. in mathematics at Monash University before researching in computer science at La Trobe University, R.M.I.T. and at CSIRO. Some of his areas of research have been document retrieval effectiveness, structured documents retrieval, and most recently on technologies that support people to interact with their information environments. He has published over 90 research papers, has served on many program committees and was a program co-chair for both SIGIR’96 and SIGIR’98.
He is now leading the Australian National Data Service creating tools, information, frameworks and the skills to enable Australia’s researchers to more effectively use and re-use research data, wherever it comes from.
Abstract
[NOTE: This paper describes the current situation; the final paper (if accepted) will be updated, and the presentation next year will focus largely on what will have been done by then]
The National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy was funded in FY 2004/5, and the programs commenced in FY 2006/7. As well as up to fifteen areas of research capability, the NCRIS plan recognised the need for a sixteenth area: Platforms for Collaboration. Over the last two years, all but one of these Platforms (AREN, AAF, ARCS, NCI) has come into being. This abstract will deal with transition of the last platform, the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) from vision to reality.
During 2006 and early 2007, Dr Rhys Francis undertook extensive consultations around the platforms for collaboration. A consistent theme was the need to improve data management and availability. In April of 2007, a forum with wide representation met and agreed to set up an ANDS Technical Working Group (ANDS TWG). The TWG produced in October 2007 a report entitled Towards the Australian Data Commons (TADC) that laid out a vision for how ANDS might operate. TADC envisaged four programs of activity within ANDS: Frameworks, Utilities, Repositories, and Researcher Practice.
In late 2007, the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) asked Monash University to be the lead agent (working in close collaboration with ANU and CSIRO) on a project to establish ANDS. This project commenced in January 2008 and is expected to conclude in August/September 2008.
The Australian National Data Service (ANDS) is being established to ensure that Australian research data is well managed, made available for access, and discoverable so that:
- Researchers can find and access any relevant data in the Australian ‘research data commons’.
- Australian researchers are able to discover, exchange, reuse and combine data from other researchers and other
domains within their own research in new ways. - Australia is able to share data easily and seamlessly to support international and nationally distributed multidisciplinary
research teams.
Consistent with these goals, over the course of 2008 the ANDS Organisational Network (ANDS ON) has been developing a Draft (because it is subject to consultation and the incoming ANDS Executive Director may want to modify it once appointed) Interim (because the first full version is due in March 2009) Business Plan. The need to focus what ANDS does has been driven by the complexity of the environment and the limited funding available. As a result, the original programs envisaged in TADC have morphed into Developing Frameworks, Providing Utilities, Seeding the Commons (the Research Data Commons, that is), and Developing Capabilities. The focus of the first two is largely as described in TADC. Seeding the Commons will be a combination of Repositories and Researcher Practice, but working with a smaller target population chosen through an open Expression of Interest process. Capabilities will focus on training and building up expertise across Australia in data management.
At the same time ANDS Project Management Committee has been focussing on the Agreement for the collaboration that will be responsible for ANDS, the contract between this collaboration and the Department of Innovation, and the search for the ANDS Executive Director.
This paper will outline the way in which ANDS came into being, the year 1 deliverables, the enduring changes that will persist beyond the end of the ANDS funding period, and the ways in which ANDS is different from (and similar to) activities overseas.
Presentation Slides
