New Innovation Projects announced
Intersect’s Innovation Committee has selected the Innovation projects for the coming year. The first project “ready to go” is the Entrée: a project which will bring together data from herbaria at our member universities and export this data to the Atlas of Living Australia. Initial university collaborators include Associate Professor Jeremy Bruhl and Mr Jon Burne at the University of New England, Dr Nicole Rice at Southern Cross University and Belinda Pellow at the Janet Cosh Herbarium at the University of Wollongong. The project will work closely with The Atlas of Living Australia and Australia’s Virtual Herbarium.
Herbaria contain information on the occurrence of plants in time and space as natives or weeds, as members of plant communities, and as objects of utility, cultivation and beauty. This information is keenly sought after by a very broad cross section of the community including various governmental and quasi-governmental organisations. The N.C.W. Beadle Herbarium (UNE) data are particularly valuable in providing many unique records especially for the highly biodiverse northeastern NSW.
This project will facilitate research improving our understanding of plant diversity and adaptation to climate change, which will be invaluable to community policy regarding our response to global warming.
Several other projects are identified as likely candidates for execution at a later stage during 2010. Final selection will, in part, depend on further investigations being carried out to define requirements. Intersect aims to consult with members to gather the richest set of requirements possible.
The three other Innovation Projects selected are:
Flow Data Flow – developing a system to manipulate distributed disparate time-series sensor data primarily used for river and wetlands management research. This project has collaborators at all of our member institutions.
Microscopy General Framework – developing a general and reusable framework for management of microscopy images and their associated metadata. This project would be based on knowledge gained through ANDS funded microscopy data capture projects with several members.
The final project selected is a general toolset for field based research enabling in-field digital data collection, classification and subsequent upload to shared repositories.
Research Data Storage initiative: consultation closes 14 May
The Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR) released a discussion paper on the $50 million Super Science Research Data Storage initiative on 14 April. DIISR is seeking written feedback from interested parties in response to some implementation models proposed in the paper. If you require a copy, please email: Mardi.Jordan@innovation.gov.au
A reminder that the feedback is due by COB 14 May. Intersect is working on a direct response to DIISR, and will circulate a draft of that response for comment this week. Institutions are encouraged to consider the paper closely in terms of fit to their specific needs, and respond directly to DIISR.
New Project work for AMMRF
Intersect is engaging in a number of other projects, including the AMMRF Project. Intersect has started work on a three phase project for the Australian Microscopy & MicroAnalysis Research Facility AMMRF. The project is defined in three stages:
1. Capability Finder – researchers use this web tool to identify instruments and techniques needed for their work and to gain access to them;
2. Research Facilitation – researchers discover how to apply the required capability to their project; and
3. Data Management System – researchers manage data output using a web tool to associate data and metadata, and tools to move data from the AMMRF to other locations on the grid.
Forthcoming eResearch Australasia conference
The Call for Participation is now open for eResearch Australasia 2010: 21st Century Research – Where Computing Meets Data. The Program Committee invites researchers and practitioners from diverse disciplines to participate in the conference, to be held 8 – 12 November at the RACV Royal Pines on Queensland’s Gold Coast, Australia. Please see www.eresearch.edu.au for more details.
Recruiting: an Engineering Project Manager
Intersect seeks an Engineering Project Manager who will have overall responsibility for the planning, design, coding and integration of all software projects, including ensuring they adhere to quality standards. The role will have responsibility for the Project Management Office including managing the day to day operational aspects of the projects and directly supervising the software engineering teams.
Recent appointments
Intersect has recently appointed Joshua Valencia as our Senior Systems Administrator, and two new eResearch Analysts: Amit Jaiswal is based at the University of New England in Armidale; and Luc Small will help support the Sydney based universities from mid May. We have also recently been joined by Casual Tester, Amy Lo (studying at UNSW); and Casual Junior Systems Administrator Alexander Bradner, (also studying at UNSW).
kind regards
Leonie Hellmers