Presentation to Global Education Network of Education Services Managers (ESMs) working within the Victorian Government Business Offices

1. Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation
Federation University Australia
Advanced technologies and research
Dr Helen Thompson
Engagement, technology transfer and capability building through
knowledge management and spatial research
15 October 2015

2. Federation University Australia
Origins: 1870 Ballarat School of Mines
Campuses: Ballarat, Gippsland, Wimmera
Faculties & Schools:
(dual sector)
Students: ~ 23,000 domestic (69%) and international (31%)
• Business
• Education & Arts
• Health
• Science & Technology
• Industry Skills
• Federation College

3. Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation
CeRDI - www.cerdi.edu.au
~ 30 staff – 12 research, 8 technical, 7 project, 3 administration
Unaligned to Faculties - reports to DVCR

4. Major technology and research trends
 Ubiquitous high-speed broadband…
Universities have the connectivity that the rest of Australia is waiting for
 The Petabyte Age…
>50% of the world’s data is being collected each year – how will this change current
research practices? What do we need to access, publish and share?
 Open data policies…
Opportunities for Universities and particularly regional universities to play a significant
role in generating insight from data
 Mobile technologies…
App development and responsive design – for student and staff recruitment,
engagement, knowledge transfer
 3d and visualisation technologies…
Massive innovation and research opportunities

5. National
and
FedUni
research
priorities
CeRDI Government,
industry and
community
needs
The application of eResearch and development
of innovative digital solutions to bridge the gap
between academic research and government,
industry and community needs
CeRDI capability:

6. Research Domains:
Groundwater
Soil
Agriculture
NRM
Climate change
Urban planning
Health
History
Sports
Social science
Arts
Etc., etc.
Technology & services:
Content management
Web portals
Knowledge management
Single source publishing
Web GIS
Data interoperability
Visualisation
Web services
Training
Servers, hubs
Survey instruments
Etc., etc.
Research outputs:
Real world applications
Community empowerment
Capacity building
Government
Community
Industry
Research
Research papers
HDR completions
Impact assessment
Global collaborations
Sector development
Research-ready datasets
Etc., etc.
x =
eResearch and digital innovation

7. CeRDI
Groundwater: Challenges and Strategies - 41st IAH International Congress, Marrakech, September 15-19, 2014 7
A variety of applications:
groundwater , soils, agriculture, biodiversity, fire, history,
sports, municipal, etc.
Allows integration of cross-disciplinary data sets
spatial.federation.edu.au
CeRDI capability: spatial data portals

8. Example projects
Online Farm Trials – www.farmtrials.com.au
 GRDC funded 2012 - 2015
 All grains trials for Australia online
 Working with Grower Groups, government, industry
 Spatial filtering and selective keyword filtering
 Brings in climate data and soils data on-the-fly
 Allows data exports
 Decision support tool for agronomists & growers
 Research-ready data sets of all grain trials

9. CropPro – www.croppro.com.au
 GRDC funded 2012-2014
 CeRDI engaged in Northern and Southern projects in 2014
 Online diagnostic tool for wheat and canola constraints
 Uses Lucid - keying software developed by UQ
 Science by DAFWA and DEPI (now DEDJTR)
 Decision support tool for agronomists & growers
 GRDC funded support in place for further enhancements 2015 & 2016

10. Sport and Recreation Spatial
www.sportandrecreationspatial.org.au
 A national geographic information system (GIS) for presenting spatial data.
 Evidence based decision making for the sport and recreation sector
 Increased capacity for research, strategic planning, and development of participation
programs and facilities.
 Provides FedUni and VU researchers with ready data sets to address research
questions of national and international significance
 Attracting government and industry investment in research
 Generating extensive research publications
 Aligned with a FedUni PhD which will generate publications and Sports Injuries Atlas

11. Natural Disaster Research
Major landslide events of January 2011 in the Grampians National Park
Floods precipitated over 190 landslides, contributing significant impact to the
environment and communities surrounding the Park
FedUni engaged by Northern Grampians Shire
Investigate the social, economic and environmental impact of the events
Project not only produced traditional research report – but also maps and data and a
resource library
Benefits of this approached confirmed by the Rapid Response Team responding to
bushfires in the region 12 months later

12.  Captures information and data on rare and threatened species
 Very strong community engagement and support
 Decision support tool for municipalities, community groups, etc.
 Research-ready data sets
www.swifft.net.au

13. Climate adaption
Climate Ready - Motivating residents to
create their own interactive, personalised
action plan to prepare for the impacts of
climate change including flood, fire, drought
and heatwave
Building Resilience in Farming and
Agribusiness in the Wimmera
 South West Climate change portal

14. www.vvg.org.au
 Broadband grant 2011 - 2013
 Federates all Victorian groundwater data
 5 bore databases, spatial layers, EPA data
 Predictions on the fly
 User selected 3D visualisations
 Allows data exports
 Decision support tool for practitioners
 Research-ready data sets

15. Corangamite Soil Health Knowledge Base
www.ccmaknowledgebase.vic.gov.au/soilhealth
 Corangamite CMA funded 2012 - 2014
 Online portal that combines eLibrary of grey literature with web-GIS
 Over 3000 documents and 120 layers in the system (legacy data capture)
 Allows crowd-sourced soil test data (e.g. farm soil tests)
 Strongly supported by government, industry and community
 Allows data exports, screen capture as pdf, saved workspace links
 Decision support tool for farmers, agronomists, catchment managers, Landcare
 Research-ready data sets of soil and related information

16. Ballarat Historic Urban Landscapes – www.hulballarat.org.au
 Captures heritage values for city planning (UNESCO approach)
 Combines eLibrary, web-GIS, visualisations and social media tools
 Before & after sliders, photo maps, panoramic visualisations, 3D landscape models
 Liberated significant municipal data sets to online availability
 Very strong community engagement and support
 Decision support tool for city planners, developers, community groups, etc.
 Research-ready data sets

17. CeRDI capability in eResearch?
Collaborate with our research, industry and community partners:
To take advantage of the eResearch tools to:
 Interoperably integrate data (open data, research data, big data,
sensor data, legacy data, crowdsourced data… any data)
 Answer the frequently asked data/information questions
 Dynamically generate conceptual and predictive models
 Make new discoveries from research ready datasets
 Measure the impacts on decision making and facilitate practice
change

18. Potential growth opportunities
• Spatial information systems
• Expand groundwater and soil research programs
nationally and internationally
• Extend research and knowledge for agriculture
development and extension
• Knowledge management
• Extend to other Research and Development
Corporations (RDCs) and geographical locations
• Extend NRM initiatives and application of citizen
science tools
• Centre for Excellence

19. Third party e.g. ABARE, ABS, BOM, CSIRO, EPAs, Unis, ………State base mapping, etc.
Water agencies, research organisations, industry, individuals, etc.
End users, e.g. Browser, mobile application, desktop application, groundwater model, etc.
Used by: researcher, community group, farmer, environmentalist, media outlet, agribusiness, etc.
Output as:
web services (W3C, OGC
compliant)
Input as:
Data, map layers, grids, text
and imagery in native
format (or web services)
Citizen science
 Landcare,
environmental and
community groups
 landholders,
farmers, individuals
 tourists, visitors
 schools, TAFE,
University students
 clubs, volunteers
GIS
SQL
Sensors
Images
Documents
Organisational
data
Sounds
CeRDI capability: interoperability