Delving into the data

20 October 2010

 

Monash University has secured more than $1.6 million from the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) to provide national leadership in the development of sustainable data management practices for researchers - and unlock vital scientific secrets lying dormant within stored research data.

The funds will be directed into three projects headed by the University Library, the Monash e-Research Centre and Monash University's Information Technology Services.

The projects will automate the capture of new research data, facilitate research data management, significantly contribute to the number of collections available for re-use, link data collections to associated researchers and grant information and make major overall improvements to efficiencies in accessibility and discovery of data.

Monash e-Research Centre Director Professor Paul Bonnington said researchers from Monash Weather and Climate could access older data-intensive weather simulations using a sophisticated metadata tagging system for searching.

"They could view the related researchers' publication, as well as any linked versions, and make a fresh analysis based upon a fully informed picture," Professor Bonnington said.

"Their published results would then be added into this same sophisticated information system. This is just one example of how these projects could work."

"Monash University leaders have the imagination and foresight to move one step closer to a future in which research data can be readily harvested in support of large-scale international collaborative research projects directed at prominent global issues."

"Some direct benefits of these data management systems include a freeing up funding and time, and a predicted increase in citations for the research data re-used."

University Librarian Ms Cathrine Harboe-Ree said the additional funding from ANDS would enable the University Library to build on its existing program of support for research data management.

"The Library will be able to offer more advisory services and professional development opportunities to researchers and professional staff," Ms Harboe-Ree said.

The project's research data librarians will also work directly with Monash researchers to showcase selected data collections through ANDS' new Research Data Australia website.