eResearch Newsletter October 2021

Dear <<First Name>>, here is the National eResearch Newsletter.

National eResearch Newsletter - October 2021

Message from AeRO:

Another year, another successful eResearch. A big thank you to all of you who took part in eResearch 2021 and made it such a success. Although you don’t really get the feeling of scale with an on-line event, there were nearly 550 people registered, representing a large proportion of the eResearch community across Australia and New Zealand.

Some excellent plenaries were complemented by great talks and BoF sessions. You can re-live them all through the recordings available on the conference portal, so please take the chance to remind yourself of the highlights, or catch up on any presentations you may have missed.

On a personal note, having sat in the hot-seat as Interim CEO of AeRO for ten months, it is now time for me to move on. It has been a great pleasure to work with you all in the eResearch community, to share in your successes, and contribute to events such as the AeRO forum and eResearch. I look forward to seeing you again shortly, wearing a different hat - and hope that we can meet face to face when conditions permit.

Phil Gurney, Interim CEO, AeRO.

CONTENTS:
* Education Initiative for Australian Science: ends 26-Nov.
* Cyber Security Awareness Month - #BeCyberSmart.
* CloudStor Clinics: 18-Oct to 13-Dec.
* TechTalk CILogon: Integrated IAM Platform: 25-Oct.
* NVIDIA Workshops for NCI GPUs: 1-Nov.
* Australian BioCommons Showcase: 3-Nov.
* NCI Skill Sharpening Courses: 3-Nov.
* RDA 18th Plenary Meeting: 3 to 11-Nov.
* ARDC Software Engineering Survey: by 19-Nov.
* EcoCommons Workshops: 22-Nov.
* ResBaz Auckland 2021: 22-Nov.
* ResBaz Sydney 2021: 23-Nov.
* ResBaz Queensland: 24-Nov.
* DReSA: Portal for Digital Research Training in Australasia.
* Accessing Disparate Soil Data.
* Carpentries Partnership to Uplift Digital Research Skills.
* Securing Data Collections of National Significance.
* TERN Digital Soil Maps for Locked-Down Students.
* NCI’s New Independent Board Members.
* Linking Data and Publications - a Crisis in Science?
* World-First Computing Technology on Nectar.
* Persistent Identifiers Could Save $Millions.

A New Collaborative Education Initiative for Australian Science: ends 26-Nov

This highly anticipated course launched on 3rd September, a collaborative teaching venture co-organized and facilitated by Intersect with logistical and HPC support from NCI Australia. The course syllabus was designed and spearheaded by an independent Organizing Committee including internationally renowned academics in computational materials science. It includes teaching contributions from 14 outstanding scientists and has attracted over 250 pre-screened registrants from Australian research organizations.

The course is free for graduate students and ECR’s in Australia in computational materials science-related fields. Click here (https://intersect.org.au/education/collaborative-graduate-courses/1st-graduate-course/) for more information and here (https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/hpc-and-data-in-materials-design-and-discovery-a-collaborative-course-registration-163159684007) to register (it finishes on 26-Nov-21).

Cyber Security Awareness Month - Do your Part #BeCyberSmart

October is Cyber Security Awareness Month across Australia and AARNet is sharing tips to help the community protect themselves from cyber threats. Learn about social engineering attacks, securing your devices and more in these blog posts:

CloudStor Clinics: 18-Oct to 13-Dec

AARNet has introduced fortnightly CloudStor Clinics to help researchers and CloudStor users get the most out of CloudStor. The sessions cater for absolute beginners through to advanced users from all areas of research. Participants can drop in any time to discuss problems they are trying to solve or issues they would like to address relating to CloudStor. AARNet staff from the eResearch, CloudStor and Service Desk teams will be available to share knowledge and help users. 18 Oct-2021 to 13 Dec-2021.

Find out more and register: https://www.aarnet.edu.au/events/cloudstor-clinics.

TechTalk CILogon: Integrated Identity and Access Management Platform: 25-Oct

CILogon enables researchers to log on to cyberinfrastructure (CI) by providing an integrated open source identity and access management platform for research collaborations, combining federated identity management (Shibboleth, InCommon, AAF) with collaborative organization management (COmanage).

This is a pre-recorded CILogon talk, with local support provided by Patrick Carnuccio, Solutions Analyst, AAF, and is a joint event with ARDC Platforms - Community of Practice (PCoP).

For more information and to sign up to the mailing list giving Zoom links for each Talk: https://sites.google.com/ardc.edu.au/techtalk2020.

NVIDIA Workshops for NCI GPUs: 1-Nov

NCI has teamed up with NVIDIA to present two GPU bootcamps in November, 'N-Ways' and 'AI for Science'. Participants will learn about multiple GPU programming models, as well as learn the basics of GPU computing and AI concepts. 1 to 3-Nov and 29 to 30-Nov.

More information is available here: https://opus.nci.org.au/display/Help/NCI-NVIDIA+workshops.

Invitation: Australian BioCommons Showcase: 3-Nov

Australian BioCommons is building digital capability in life sciences. If you've ever wondered how BioCommons works, or struggled to understand what distributed bioscience research infrastructure actually is, head along to the BioCommons Showcase! Hear about a wide range of projects from collaborators in Australia, Europe and the US.

All welcome, 3-5 Nov 21.

See: www.biocommons.org.au/2021-showcase.

NCI Skill Sharpening Courses: 3-Nov

Starting in November and December, the Intersect Australia team will be delivering a suite of beginner-oriented 'Skill Sharpening' HPC courses for NCI users. These free sessions will help users work their way up from the very basics of the Linux command line and programming languages, through to more advanced HPC and parallel programming techniques. The first one is on 3-Nov, and the last on 8-Dec.

More information is available here: https://opus.nci.org.au/display/Help/Skill+Sharpening+-+User+Training%2C+Nov-Dec+2021.

RDA 18th Plenary Meeting: 3 to 11-Nov

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) Plenary meeting is a bi-annual meeting where members of RDA meet to discuss new ideas, hold working and interest group meetings and share updates on RDA achievements and outputs. All are invited to attend, and with numerous sessions being offered in multiple time zones, attendees will have the opportunity to network and collaborate, while learning about the latest successes within RDA and the data community.

Early bird registration ends 25 October, so register soon. For more information, view the programme (https://www.rd-alliance.org/rdas-18th-plenary-draft-programme) and the “Plenary Pathways” (https://www.rd-alliance.org/rdas-18th-plenary-pathways).

ARDC Software Engineering Survey: by 19-Nov

The ARDC is conducting a survey to help understand the scale and distribution of the national workforce involved in supporting research software across Australia. This is a capability that is currently spread across professional and academic roles. It supports the ARDC’s National Agenda for Research Software in Australia.

Responses are sought across the whole sector - research institutions and supporting eInfrastructure providers, such as NCRIS facilities, universities, research centres and institutes, Publicly Funded Research Agencies (PFRAs), and regional/state/national eInfrastructure organisations. See https://ardc.edu.au/news/research-software-capability-in-australia-survey/.

Please submit your survey responses by Friday 19 November 2021 at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9GJWRQH.
Any questions, please contact the survey team via contact@ardc.edu.au.

EcoCommons Workshops: 22-Nov

In November, EcoCommons will be offering the popular “R for ecologists” workshop at the on-line ESA conference from 22-26 November. We will also be running a workshop on “Using the EcoCommons platform to run species distribution models and make climate projections” at both the ESA conference and the Queensland ResBaz conference from 24 to 26 November.

See here (What’s coming in November?) for more details: https://www.ecocommons.org.au/whats-coming-in-november/.

Research Bazaar Auckland 2021: 22-Nov

ResBaz is coming back this year! The Research Bazaar is a worldwide festival promoting the digital literacy emerging at the centre of modern research.

ResBaz Auckland will run from 22 to 26-Nov.

Visit the ResBaz website (https://resbaz.auckland.ac.nz/) for more updates and check out last year’s programme. More information will be added soon.

ResBaz Sydney 2021 Registrations are Open! 23-Nov

Join ResBaz Sydney 2021, a free multi stream online event being held Tuesday 23 - Thursday 25 November. The program will feature key stories, workshops, short talks, demonstrations and lots of opportunities to find out about next gen tech and tools for researchers. Our program has dedicated streams for compute, humanities and social science, survey/data collection and programming skills, which are open to all, regardless of skill level or discipline.

Click here to register: https://resbaz.github.io/resbaz2021/sydney/.

ResBaz Queensland: 24-Nov

The Research Bazaar is a worldwide festival promoting the digital literacy at the centre of modern research, and events will be held at a number of university campuses around the world.

The 2021 Queensland Research Bazaar will be a three-day intensive conference hosted by The University of Queensland, where researchers will come together to up-skill in “next generation digital research tools and skills”. ResBaz is a highly participatory event where researchers from many different disciplines can learn, share knowledge and skills, and have fun!

We are also hosting a one-day satellite event, on Friday 26 November, at Griffith's Gold Coast Campus.

More information: https://resbaz.github.io/resbaz2021qld.

Launching DReSA: Portal for Digital Research Training in Australasia

Digital Research Skills Australasia (DReSA) is a new portal for discovering digital research training events, materials, providers and trainers in Australia, New Zealand, and the region.
See: https://ardc.edu.au/news/dresa-a-portal-for-digital-research-training-in-australasia.

To see how the partnership to create DReSA arose, see Australian BioCommons at https://www.biocommons.org.au/news/elixir-biocommons-dresa.

Accessing Disparate Soil Data

TERN’s SoilDataFederator makes multiple, disparate sources of soil data available ‘on the fly’ in consistent, easy to use formats. The SoilDataFederator significantly eases access to soil data created by different agencies and enhances Australia’s ability to use the data for understanding and overseeing managed and natural landscapes.

See: https://www.tern.org.au/news-soil-data-federator/.

Carpentries Partnership for Australia to Uplift Digital Research Skills

A new partnership between 10 Australian research institutions will train instructors in The Carpentries, a proven method for teaching digital research skills to researchers.

See: https://ardc.edu.au/news/carpentries-partnership-for-australia-to-uplift-digital-research-skills/.

Securing Data Collections of National Significance

To help tackle the significant challenge of data retention, the ARDC is partnering with Australian research organisations to co-invest in storage capacity to manage datasets of national significance through our Data Retention Project.

See: https://ardc.edu.au/news/securing-data-collections-of-national-significance/.

TERN Digital Soil Maps the Next Best Thing for Locked-Down Students

TERN Digital Soil Maps the Next Best Thing for Locked-Down Students.
Movement restrictions have forged stronger connections between TERN and university educators. Teaching academics no longer able to take their students on field excursions because of COVID-19 are finding value in using TERN’s data and data tools as a way to bring the Australian environment into their online teaching.

See: https://www.tern.org.au/news-dsm-for-lockeddown-student/.

NCI Welcomes New Independent Board Members

NCI is pleased to announce three new independent board members have been appointed to the NCI Advisory Board – Professor Melodie McGeoch, Ms Clare McLaughlin, and Dr Rosemarie Sadsad. These new members will start their roles in December 2021. NCI Advisory Board Chair Dr Greg Ayers is excited to add these diverse voices as independent board members: “I was delighted by the calibre of applicants, and I know that these three will strengthen NCI’s strategic position through their deep and diverse experience in areas where NCI can make a difference.”

Read more here: https://nci.org.au/news-events/news/nci-welcomes-new-independent-board-members.

Linking Data and Publications - a Crisis in Science?

Learn how the ARDC is helping to improve how data is referenced in publications to enable validation of research findings and support reproducibility through the Research Data Alliance.

See: https://ardc.edu.au/news/linking-data-and-publications-a-crisis-in-science/.

World-First Computing Technology on the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud

A new partnership between ARDC, NVIDIA and Monash University brings leading edge technology to Nectar to address growing cybersecurity requirements, while ensuring researchers have fast access to large data sets.

See: https://ardc.edu.au/news/world-first-computing-technology-on-ardc-nectar-research-cloud/.

Persistent Identifiers Could Save the Research Sector Millions of Dollars

A recent analysis revealed that persistent identifiers (PIDs) could save UK universities more than £5.67 million over 5 years with the establishment of a national PIDS consortium. How much time and money could PIDs save Australian researchers and institutions?

See: https://ardc.edu.au/news/persistent-identifiers-could-save-the-research-sector-millions-of-dollars/.

Contributions

This newsletter is based on contributions from members of the eResearch community, and draws on news articles and newsletters published across the sector. The Newsletter is published around the 16th of each month. Please send all contributions (max. 100 words + link + image) or pointers to any other relevant articles or newsletters to editor@aero.edu.au.
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Thanks, Alex Reid, AeRO Newsletter Editor.