IT News - 2015 & 2016 | NWU | North-West University
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IT News - 2015 & 2016 | NWU | North-West University http://www.nwu.ac.za/it-news-2015-2016 IT NEWS 2015 IT changes gears to support researchers at NWU 01/12/2015 - 11:05 IT @ NWU has a new vision for the relationship between IT and the University’s researchers. IT wants to help accelerate research discovery through provisioning of relevant technology, infrastructure, and support. Boeta Pretorius, Chief IT Director says: “Research has been mentioned in the IT strategy for many years, but in 2015 we’re actually going to do something about the way we support our researcher”. So moving from words to action, in the past three months IT has done the following: added an eResearch specialist to their staff complement, joined conversations about an African Research Cloud together with other prominent research institutes in South Africa and abroad, and obtained approval for NWU to feature as founding partner of a South African based institute that will be aimed at research in data intensive sciences. These steps are the rst towards establishing an eResearch Initiative at the North-West University from an IT perspective. Other eResearch partners are also gearing up to embrace technology in research support. According to Mrs Elsa Esterhuizen, director of Potchefstroom Campus Library Services, eResearch highlights the importance of dovetailing between the various role-players. The Library Services do not only provide access to accredited information sources, but also training and support in the use of research tools. The Research Commons allows exclusive access to postgraduates and researchers. This collaborative hub offers relevant infrastructure enhancing the research process. Another strategic initiative from the Library is the establishment of Boloka, the NWU Institutional Repository where the NWU research outputs are showcased, more visible and online accessible. Although the focus of eResearch is often on the cyberinfrastructure, Australia’s Monash University eResearch Centre classies eResearch capabilities under the 6 C’s: Collect, Compute, Comprehend, Collaborate, Communicate, and Customise. Collection refers to the capturing, storage, and management of research data. Data can be generated by research equipment such as microscopes, next generation sequencers, or high performance computers, or through online surveys, and of course even in paper format. Data has to be managed throughout the lifecycle of a research project and thereafter. Good research data management practices are essential for reproducible research and enables researchers to share and reuse data. Role players from an institutional point of view include IT (physical storage and data transfer) and Library Services (development of research data management plans), as well as Research Support (focussing on compliance with funders’ data management requirements). Although the Compute capability is typically well-developed within research areas such as physics, 1 of 37 2021/03/30, 12:51 IT News - 2015 & 2016 | NWU | North-West University http://www.nwu.ac.za/it-news-2015-2016 engineering, and chemistry, data volumes have increased exponentially in various other disciplines including genomics, medicine, and humanities amongst others. Increased data sizes combined with a need for integration of diverse data sets and other factors, have increased the computing requirements in these elds too. Access to adequate high performance computing resources (hardware and expertise) is critical for modelling, simulations, and data processing. Collaborations between traditionally compute intensive research units, IT, national and international infrastructure providers is of utmost importance to ensure development of appropriate computing resources for research purposes. It is well understood that the human brain can interpret complex datasets better through appropriate graphical or visual displays than in textual or numerical format. Comprehension of research datasets can be facilitated through the use of visualisation facilities such as the Highly Immersive Visualisation Environment at University of the Western Cape, the Scientic Computing group’s visualisation studio at the University of Cape Town, or the CAVE2 at Monash University. Visualisation of research datasets provides very interesting and complex challenges and is an active topic of research across the globe. Not only does it involve IT, but also subject specic researchers, computer scientists, engineers, arts, and software developers. Thinking about large international Throughout the lifecycle of These communication mediums collaborative research projects research projects, data is have been popularised alongside such as the (SKA) Square generated (and managed), electronic journals to reduce the Kilometre Array or Human, analysed and visualised. The time to access new information Heredity, and Health in Africa stakeholders including the funders, and create new opportunities for (H3Africa) one soon realises that fellow researchers and collaboration and knowledge new technologies and collaborators, potential students, sharing. methodologies are required to policy makers and governments support the Collaboration aspect of need to be informed of the these project. Virtual meetings, progress, process, and outcomes. collaborative document editing, Research Communication has also collaborative software changed over the last few years. development, and collaborative The use of social media and Web training initiatives are only a few 2.0 - Twitter, Face- Book, blogs, and W v Belkum, A vd Walt, F v Niekerk, aspects where eResearch comes to discussion forums are now B Pretorius, play. included. P Enslin 2 of 37 2021/03/30, 12:51 IT News - 2015 & 2016 | NWU | North-West University http://www.nwu.ac.za/it-news-2015-2016 The Power of Partnerships 01/12/2015 - 10:14 In July 2015 the NWU officially commenced with an eResearch drive that will ultimately help to align research support units and researchers across all disciplines to embrace the power of the digital world in the 21st century. The NWU eResearch Initiative was launched with a two-month awareness campaign across the Mahikeng, Potchefstroom, and Vanderbijlpark Campuses. Engagements with institutional management, library services, information technology, research directors, researchers, and postdoctoral research fellows were top priority. On 1 October the rst quarterly NWU eResearch workshop took place. The quarterly workshops form part of the eResearch strategy and provide opportunities for stakeholders to improve their knowledge and share their progress as well as challenges. During the workshops the daunting task of keeping abreast of developments in research related technology and methodology is addressed by invited talks from experts in one of the relevant areas. Melissa Badenhorst from Worldwide Information Services (WWIS) spoke at the rst eResearch workshop and demonstrated the research tracking capabilities within InCitesTM, a research analytics tool from Thomson Reuters. The demo was insightful and lead to a lively discussion about how the tool, which the NWU already has a license for, could be used by researchers and research administrators to benchmark research activities within the university. The next item on the agenda was an update from Library Services (Mahikeng, Potchefstroom, and Vanderbijlpark Campuses), the Research Support Office, and Information Technology about their current standing and future vision for embracing technology to enhance research. The workshop provided a great opportunity to learn about ongoing initiatives in the various areas and also to plan collaborative actions for the next few months. The next workshop is planned for early December and will focus specically on Research Data Management. To contact us, please email [email protected] or follow us on Twitter @NWU_eResearch. (Written by Anelda van der Walt) 3 of 37 2021/03/30, 12:51 IT News - 2015 & 2016 | NWU | North-West University http://www.nwu.ac.za/it-news-2015-2016 Aligned Access Control Process across Campuses 11/11/2015 - 16:14 Institutional Management requested an alignment of access control across NWU campuses to permit electronic access to all open access areas (e.g. pedestrian turnstiles, vehicular access booms, libraries) for all staff and students of the university across campuses. In close collaboration with our colleagues from the Protection Services across campuses, this process has been nalised and went live on 12 October 2015. What changed? All active staff and registered students of NWU will be able to access all general open areas e.g. main gates, pedestrian turnstiles, libraries across campuses by swiping their card. No special arrangements needed any more. Each campus retains its own autonomy and exibility in respect of their specic access control areas and security systems Business processes, documentation (forms) and information regarding access control are now standardized and aligned across the campuses. This process is now integrated with the core administrative processes and business rules of NWU. It will prevent data duplication, enables data validation, improves business process efficiency, productivity and improves data integrity. For example, the appointment and resignation of staff and the registration and/or discontinuation of students are linked to the core administrative system which enhances the efficiency of access control. The project also created a common information platform for future enhancements and access control related functionality. If you experience