What is e-Research?

e-Research is the use of IT, communications and information management (IM) technologies to do better research and to do research collaboration better.  e-Research enables researchers to draw on perspectives and resources from a range of participants, in order to develop new insights and new solutions to complex problems.  It involves the use of technology to draw people together, where technology is the facilitator to researcher collaboration.

The e-Research vision can be illustrated by analogy:  Over a period of around 10 years in the recent past, e‑Learning technologies transformed the way eduction is conducted, from blackboards to video projectors, computer animations and lectures on-line; from print-based distance education to the web, email, webinars, and broadband into the home.

A similar transformation is upon us to improve the ways research is conducted.  While the internet was largely developed by and for the research community, and researchers have enthusiastically used its basic capabilities (telnet, FTP, email and more recently the web) since their inception, a next wave of advanced capabilities for researchers is now emerging.  From a multi-national blog that provides a new academic forum on art theory; to multi-disciplinary research drawing together databases on climate change from England, the USA and Australia, e‑research is changing the face of research around the world.

The primary themes and drivers of e-Research are:

Data management

The ‘data deluge’ is increasingly impacting research practice, from the collection and organizing of massive amounts of raw data through to electronic publishing of finished works.  This is driven by the digitization of most forms of research data collection, in particular the relentless improvements in high resolution digital image capture devices.  These become the primary engines for creation of large research datasets in instruments as diverse as telescopes, microscopes, synchrotrons and wind tunnels.  Cataloguing, organizing and preserving research data, and making it available in controlled ways for reuse by other researchers are fundamental objectives of e‑research.  Almost all e‑research themes track back to the data deluge driver.

Research collaboration

Collaboration between very different research domains is the well from which many research breakthroughs spring.  Many e‑research themes aim to improve inter-disciplinary research collaboration, within Monash and internationally, through improved methods of communicating and sharing data.

High performance computing

High performance and grid computing (HPC) technologies are equally vital for simulation of complex systems, such as climate modelling, and for processing large research datasets from raw numbers into visual forms suitable for the human mind to digest and interpret.  Hence HPC becomes increasingly important to e‑research over a wider and wider range of research topics.

Ease of use

e-Research aims to extend e-Research technologies to all research domains across all faculties, beyond those tolerant of arcane and primitive IT systems.  Therefore user interface design, ease of use of systems, user-centred design and custom solutions to meet the needs of specific research disciplines and their particular work practices are key e-Research objectives.