ARDC Digital Research Skills Summit 2024

You’re invited to join us at the ARDC Digital Research Skills Summit 2024 in Naarm/Melbourne and online.

As the research landscape undergoes rapid digital transformation, upskilling researchers for digital research becomes an imperative for achieving cutting edge discoveries.

Join us for all 3 days, or register for the days which interest you the most!

ARDC Skills Leadership Forum

On Tuesday, 21 May (Day 1): Explore the drivers and barriers to developing a national digital research infrastructure workforce in this Leadership forum, facilitated by Professor Jacek Jasieniak and joined by thought leaders:

• Professor Jacek Jasieniak, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Infrastructure), Monash University
• Professor Pascal Perez, Director, AURIN
• Dr Tim Rawling, CEO, Auscope
• Associate Professor Nic Geard, Director, Melbourne Data Analytics Platform (MDAP), University of Melbourne
• Julie Rothacker, Director, Major External Projects (Government), Australian Catholic University

Building Community around Research Infrastructure

On Wednesday, 22 May (Day 2): Using ARDC partnered digital research infrastructure projects as test cases and tapping into researchers' and skills trainers' insights, identify the roadblocks for users of digital research infrastructure and explore exemplar solutions to overcoming them.

Projects include:

• Language Data Commons of Australia
• Improving Indigenous Research Capabilities
• Australian Creative Histories and Futures
• Australian Internet Observatory
• Enhancing Metadata for Inclusive Research on Entrenched Disadvantage
• Biosecurity Commons
• Open Ecoacoustics
• WildObs Australia
• Health Studies Australian National Data Asset (HeSANDA)
• AIHW’s National Health Data Hub (NHDH)

Carpentry Connect

On Thursday, 23 May (Day 3): Participate in an interactive day of talks, workshops and networking for the Carpentries community across Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand).

Session highlights include:

• Local community lightning talks
• The Board is listening: Feedback for the Board of Directors
• Discussion: How can we collaborate better together?
• Workshop: Revitalising Git training curriculum
• Discussion: Instructor setup for teaching workshops

The Carpentries are a global community of researchers and data professionals who teach programming and data science skills to researchers worldwide.

Who Should Attend

The Summit is open to everyone and provides an opportunity to share, learn and network with thought leaders, digital research infrastructure providers, digital skills trainers and researchers.

We particularly welcome:

• Digital skills trainers
• Researchers
• Digital infrastructure providers
• Research support professionals
• Community engagement specialists
• People from The Carpentries community (and Carpentry-curious too!)

Program overview

We will release a full program closer to the event. Here’s an overview in the meantime:

Day 1 ARDC Skills Leadership Forum (21 May)

Theme

The Skilled Research Infrastructure Workforce: Pathways and Support to Enable Effective Research

Time

2-4pm (AEST) Panel discussion

4-5pm (AEST) Networking drinks

Who should attend

• Research leaders and decision makers
• Research infrastructure providers
• Researchers working in the infrastructure space
• Training managers

Join us for an afternoon of thought-provoking panel discussions with leaders from national and institutional research infrastructure facilities on driving the development of a national, digitally skilled research infrastructure workforce. What pathways and support help address skills gaps to enable the delivery of effective research insfrastructure?

The ARDC Skills Leadership Forum 2024 (click link to access program) comprises a panel discussion and an audience Q-and-A session. Join us in-person for coffee and tea prior to the Forum and after for a late afternoon reception.

The Forum will be recorded. The recording will be provided to all registrants and published online after the event.

Panel Members

• Professor Pascal Perez

Professor Pascal Perez is currently Director of the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN), a National Research Infrastructure facility funded by NCRIS and hosted by the University of Melbourne. He is a specialist of Integrative Social Simulation, using Multi-Agent Systems technologies to explore complex infrastructure systems.

• Dr Tim Rawling

Tim Rawling is the CEO of AuScope Limited: Australia’s provider of research infrastructure to the national geoscience community working on fundamental geoscience questions and grand challenges — climate change, natural resources security and natural hazards. Prior to this role, he was Director of Infrastructure Development for AuScope’s Australian Geophysical Observing System (AGOS).

• Associate Professor Nic Geard Director

Nic is an Associate Professor at the School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne, and Director of the Melbourne Data Analytics Platform. Nic was previously an ARC DECRA Fellow (2013-16) at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, and a Research Fellow at the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton.

• Julie Rothacker

Julie led the Monash Research Platforms strategy in the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research Infrastructure portfolio. Julie strategically directed research infrastructure initiatives such as the implementing systems/integrations to capture key information to support strategic investment into research infrastructure. Julie led the expansion of the Research Platforms strategy across Monash University from a focus of biomedical and drug discovery capabilities.

Day 2 Building Community around Research Infrastructure (22 May)

Time

9.30 am to 5 pm (AEST)

Who should attend

• Research infrastructure developers and managers
• Researchers and infrastructure users
• Digital research skills trainers
• Training leads and managers

Leveraging ARDC-partnered digital research infrastructure initiatives as case studies, join us as we draw on the expertise of researchers and skills trainers to uncover the challenges faced by users of digital research infrastructure and investigate possible strategies to address them. Together we can share experiences and expectations to gain an understanding of one another’s perspectives and needs, and work towards common goals for mutual benefit. Bringing the user into the conversation ensures that the design of research platforms, services, tools and training programs cater to the specific needs of the users. Engaging and building community often happens through effective training, which for users maximises the benefits offered by research infrastructure.

Join us on Day 2 of the Skills Summit (click link to access program) for a ‘working meeting’-style event with presentations, active discussions and collaborative problem solving activities to explore and enhance your community and skills building initiatives.

Featured Research Infrastructure

HASS & I Research Data Commons

• Language Data Commons of Australia (LDaCA)

Making nationally significant language data available for academic and non-academic use and providing a model for ensuring continued access with appropriate community control.

• Improving Indigenous Research Capabilities (IIRC)

An Indigenous research capability program that celebrates, supports and enhances the capabilities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and researchers at the interface of research data science and Indigenous knowledge systems. It also empowers Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to manage their own data and decide their own local data priorities.

• Australian Creative Histories and Futures
• Australian Internet Observatory

• Enhancing Metadata for Inclusive Research on Entrenched DisadvantageAustralian Creative Histories and Futures

A project to improve the metadata of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Higher Education (HE) administrative data within Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA) (formerly known as Multi-Agency Data Integration Project (MADIP) data) with a view to increase the utility of the data for researchers/analysts

Planet Research Data Commons

• Biosecurity Commons

Biosecurity Commons provides a cloud-based decision-support platform for modelling biosecurity risk and response. Users can share data, collaborate on processing or analyses, and selectively share access to workflows and associated data products. Dr James Camac will highlight successes and the barriers yet to be overcome regarding user engagement.

• Open Ecoacoustics

Open EcoAcousticsaids facilitates Australia-wide ecological and threatened species monitoring using passive acoustic monitoring. The platform is open to everyone to aggregate, process or share data, and conduct analyses. Professor Paul Roe will highlight successes and the barriers yet to be overcome regarding user engagement.

• WildObs Australia

Wildlife data is collected by many users in Australia and camera traps have become a preferred non-intrusive sampling approach for many species. The Wildlife Observatory is building a platform to allow users to upload, process, share and analyse camera trap data, both the images and the spreadsheets. Dr Matthew Luskin will highlight barriers and solutions regarding user engagement.

People Research Data Commons

• Health Studies Australian National Data Asset (HeSANDA)

This program builds national infrastructure to allow researchers to access and share data from health studies, including clinical trials, cohort studies and other data valuable for research.

• AIHW’s National Health Data Hub (NHDH)

The National Health Data Hub is a flexible system for linking and providing access to health data sets. It will deliver substantial efficiencies to the data linkage process, timeframes and costs, while providing more streamlined access to data for government and non-government researchers.

Day 3 Carpentry Connect (23 May)

Time

9.30 am to 4 pm (AEST)

10am-3pm (AWST)

10am-4pm (NZST)

Who should attend

• Instructors & Trainers
• Researchers
• Research support professionals
• Training leads at research infrastructure facilities
• Carpentries community members and Carpentry-curious

This will be an interactive day of talks, workshops and networking for the Australian Carpentries community. The central face-to-face hub in Naarm/Melbourne will be supported by hybrid connections to satellite hubs and online participants.

The Carpentries are a global community of researchers and data professionals who teach foundational coding and data science skills to researchers worldwide. It’s backed by a non-profit organisation which develops curriculum, trains instructors and teaches workshops on reproducible data and software skills.

This is a perfect opportunity to engage with Carpentries folk from across Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand), seek help in building learner communities and find out how The Carpentries can support your training needs.

A draft program is taking shape right now, and a detailed program is coming soon.

Important

Attendees are expected to abide by the ARDC Code of Conduct during this event.

The ARDC Skills Forum 2024 will be held in person at the University of Melbourne with options to participate online. Some workshops may be held in person only due to the nature of interactive workshops.

Workshops will require laptop computers (PC or Mac). Personal devices, such as mobile phones and tablets, will not be suitable for the workshops. Please bring your own device and charging cords.

Day 1 will conclude with a late afternoon network reception. Lunch will be provided on Days 2 and 3. Light refreshments will be provided on all days.

*We are unable to cater to special dietary requirements for registrations submitted after 14 May 2024.

Recordings

Plenary and panel sessions will be recorded. The recordings will be provided to all registrants and published online after the event.

COVID Precautions

There will be disposable face masks and hand sanitisers at the venue.

Please refer to the University of Melbourne’s COVID-19 update for the latest advice on COVID management at the university and refer to the Victorian Better Health website for advice on COVID-19 management in Victoria.

Do you have questions about this event? Contact us.