share the newsletter of the Australian National Data Service july 09 : issue 01 Introduction to ANDS - Ron Sandland, Chair of the Steering Committee Welcome to the ANDS newsletter. ANDS began » that research collaboration is vital to crack some of the its life as a visionary component of the Nation’s major challenges facing humanity in the twenty-fi rst investment in e-Science. Commencing as part of the century – energy, climate change and health being just three examples. Australian Government’s NCRIS initiative (the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy), Bringing these two ideas together means we have to fi nd new ways to capture and share data across Australian (and ultimately global) involving an investment of $542M over the years research and data producing agencies to ensure relevant, high- 2005-2011, ANDS funding of $24M lies within the quality data is accessible to researchers anywhere in the system. Platforms for Collaboration capability within NCRIS. To do this, we have to be able to create accessible repositories The decision by the government in its May budget to add and facilitate access to their holdings. This is a non-trivial task $48M from the Education Investment Fund to pursue that requires us to address such questions as: how can data be the ANDS objectives through its “Super Science” captured and stored in such a way as to make its retrieval and initiative has further demonstrated its commitment re-use as effi cient as possible? to e-Science. I’m very pleased that three research institutions, understanding implicitly the importance of the initiative, agreed to partner to ANDS rests on two critical underpinning ideas: form ANDS: Monash University, ANU and CSIRO. Monash, in » that data is an increasingly important component of the particular, has long been a leader in this domain and it has been research enterprise as new means of data capture and very important to the initiative that their expertise has been at the storage (sensor systems, high performance computing forefront of the development of ANDS. modelling outputs, data repositories etc) become available. Inside Issue 01 » Introduction to ANDS from the » Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Chair of the Steering Committee Research Forums » Supporting the Data Lifecycle Symposium » Conference reports » ANDS out and about - ANDS engagements » Focus on research excellence - TARDIS » National eResearch Architecture Taskforce (NeAT) » ANDS launches online services project update » Meet the ANDS staff - Dr Ross Wilkinson » ANDS staff visit the Australian Synchrotron ands.org.au ISSN 1836-9731 share the newsletter of the Australian National Data Service. Putting ANDS together involved a major commitment from a long and Lesley Wyborn). They were supported by teams from Monash, list of players. We were fortunate to have visionary leadership ANU and CSIRO. We have been very fortunate to attract Ross within DIISR in Anne-Marie Lansdown and Clare McLaughlin along Wilkinson, formerly of CSIRO, as the Executive Director of ANDS. with the DIISR team of Peter Nicholson, Jacqueline Cooke and Of course ANDS is a far broader initiative than the activities spanned Mardi Jordan. Rhys Francis, who facilitated the NCRIS Platforms by the three founding partners. As well as representatives from for Collaboration capability, and Andrew Treloar played critical those institutions, our Steering Committee also has representatives roles in shaping ANDS in the early days. The formation of ANDS from the University of Queensland, the New South Wales Department had important contributions from many others including the of Health, and the University of South Australia. My role is that of members of the Program Management Committee (Paul Bonnington, an independent Chair. Alan McMeekin, Cathrine Harboe-Ree, Vic Elliott, Adrian Burton, David Toll, Alex Zelinsky) and the ANDS Establishment Project While our job in ANDS is to provide the services and infrastructure (Andrew Treloar, Adrian Burton, Margaret Henty, Chris Blackall, that underpin the ability to capture, store, retrieve and re-use data Ross Wilkinson, Tracey Hind, John Morrissey). across the Australian research community, we will need to see a parallel change in culture that will result in researchers’ seeing Robin Stanton, Edwina Cornish and Alex Zelinsky took the lead depositing and sharing their data as a good thing. We must provide in their respective founding organizations and provided visionary incentives to share as well as infrastructure to facilitate it. We hope inputs. The ANDS Technical Forum also played an important role the legacy of ANDS will be to facilitate the creation of a true ‘data in its foundation (Markus Buchhorn, Adrian Burton, James Dalziel, commons’ whose existence will mean a more powerful national Rhys Francis, Clare McLaughlin, John Morrissey, Ray Norris, Judith research capability, and ultimately better research. Pearce, Wayne Richards, Nick Tate, Andrew Treloar, Andrew Wilson Supporting the Data Lifecycle Symposium L to R: Dr Tim Churches (NSW Department of Health) and L to R: David Koch (University of Newcastle) and L to R: Prof Leon Sterling (University of Melbourne) and Dr Rodney McDuff (University of Queensland) John Brattan (University of Newcastle) Prof Paul Turnbull (Griffi th University) Forty people came together at the University of Sydney on February Major issues of the day included the roles of both ANDS and ARCS 11 for the Supporting the Data Lifecycle Symposium. The aim of in fi nding solutions to many of the issues posed by improving data the day was to encourage discussion around the stage in the management and storage. ANDS and ARCS are not the only groups data lifecycle where a dataset fi rst moves into a stable managed with a responsibility for supporting researchers, and there is a environment, to allow for formal collaboration and the preliminary considerable challenge in the co-ordination of solutions. phases of publication. The event was sponsored by ANDS, ARCS Other issues discussed included (from a very long list), disciplinary and Intersect, and hosted by University of Sydney ICT. differences, data citation, metadata description, discover, access, Those present came from varied backgrounds, including research identity management and, curiously, the phenomenon of “petabyte envy”. areas, research administration, IT service areas and libraries. The For further information about this event see: day-long symposium included presentations from ANDS and ARCS, http://ands.org.au/events/sdl/index.html. together with presentations from the perspective of the university administration and the researcher. ands.org.au page 2 ANDS out and about – ANDS engagements Since the foundation of ANDS the Executive Director, Ross Wilkinson, has travelled to meet with a large number of stakeholders across Australia. As a result of these initial discussions ANDS has entered into closer engagements with a number of organisations. At the time of writing these included: » Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation http://www.ansto.gov.au/ » The Australian National University http://www.anu.edu.au » Australian Research Collaboration Service http://www.arcs.org.au/ » CSIRO http://www.csiro.au/ » Department of Primary Industries (Victoria) http://new.dpi.vic.gov.au/home Ross Wilkinson gives a presentation at the Prof Margaret Sheil and Ross Wilkinson. Australian Research Council. Photo courtesy Brooke Audsley - » eResearch SA Photo courtesy Brooke Audsley - Australian Research Council http://www.eresearchsa.edu.au/ Australian Research Council » Griffi th University http://www.griffi th.edu.au/ » Australian Social Science Data Archive - ASeSS » Integrated Marine Observing System » Australian Synchrotron - Remote Computed Tomography http://www.imos.org.au/ Reconstruction and Visualization Service » Intersect http://www.intersect.org.au/ » CSIRO – SISS project, Emergency Animal Disease » iVEC Bioresponse Collaboration Platform and AusCover Workfl ow, http://www.ivec.org/ Remote Computed Tomography Reconstruction and » Monash University Visualization Service http://www.monash.edu.au/ » Curtin University of Technology– AusCover Workfl ow project » Queensland University of Technology » Flinders University – eResearch service around AusStage http://www.qut.edu.au/ » Griffi th University – National Criminal Justice Research Data » TARDIS – Federated Diffraction Image Publication Repository http://tardis.edu.au/ Network » Tasmanian Partnership for Advance Computing (TPAC) » Integrated Marine Observing System – MACDDAP project http://www.tpac.org.au/main/ » iVEC – AusCover Workfl ow project » The University of Melbourne » Murdoch University – BioInformatics Workfl ows http://www.unimelb.edu.au/ » Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) – » The University of New South Wales AusCover Workfl ow project http://www.unsw.edu.au/ » The University of Adelaide – Australian Plant Phenomics » The University of Newcastle Network http://www.newcastle.edu.au/ » The University of Melbourne – Australian Node of the Human Variome project National eResearch Architecture » The University of Queensland – Aus-e-Lit project and Taskforce (NeAT) projects eResearch service around AusStage and Australian Plant » Atlas of Living Australia – DIAS-B project Phenomics Network » Australian Animal Health Laboratory – Emergency Animal » The University of Sydney – DataMiNX project Disease Bioresponse Collaboration Platform » The University of Western Australia – National Criminal » Australian Phenomics Facility