Intended audience: IDS staff

Digital Research Services (DRS) is focused on providing digital solutions that empower world class research. This year we have concentrated on defining our services and delivering large-scale outcomes for the research community, through strong collaboration with our key stakeholders: The Library, Research Development and Support (RDS), and the Office of Graduate Research (OGR).

 

Our Projects

One of our first projects was to acquire a standard survey tool that would meet the needs of researchers. In 2017, researchers were using a range of different survey tools, with varying capabilities, learning curves, and costs. An earlier attempt to select a standard tool had stalled. In late 2017, DRS reviewed previous requirements, re-engaged with researchers, and took the project to completion, resulting in the selection of Qualtrics. This is a popular survey tool than can be used by all staff and students, for simple to complex surveys. Since its acquisition, uptake has been rapid, as it is easy to learn and researchers no longer need to worry about paying for a survey tool from their research funds.

Despite the wide applicability of Qualtrics, some areas of research (e.g. Medicine) required a more specialised online survey and database tool to handle specific types of research data (e.g. clinical trial data, which has confidentiality requirements). The REDCap product was acquired and installed in mid-2018, and is currently in pilot by the College of Medicine and Public Health, as they determine how best to support the tool for a wider deployment.

Our next challenge in collaboration with RDS was to assist the University to refresh its ageing research management system, ResearchMaster. The version in use is quite old and is no longer in active support by the vendor. The research management system is the main source of data about Flinders researchers, projects, and publications. Information in the system is used as evidence to support researcher career development, as well as for reporting to research funding bodies. It’s also used to provide input for national and international research rankings, which affect the reputation of the University.

At the same time, OGR was seeking a solution to better support Higher Degree Research (HDR) students through their candidature. OGR was using a mix of manual processes and systems to manage students, connect them with their supervisors, track their progression, and support them through to examination.

In early 2018, DRS, the Library, and RDS consulted with the research community and OGR to elaborate their needs for research management solutions. During consultation it became evident that the major research management process was ineffective. The ethics approval process was widely regarded by researchers as slow and cumbersome, in some cases preventing research being undertaken in a timely manner.

To address the technology aspects of all these diverse requirements, DRS issued a comprehensive multi-part tender for a research management solution.  The solution would need to address the research management system refresh, satisfy HDR management requirements, and enable an improved ethics approval process. The tender did not prescribe a single system, as a market scan had already indicated that a “one stop shop” solution was probably not feasible.

After an extensive and widely consultative tender process, a solution was selected consisting of the following cloud-based products:

• Elsevier Pure as the new research management system
• Infonetica ERM to support a newly-designed ethics approval process, integrated with Pure
• SkillsForge for HDR student candidature management

The Research Management Implementation Project kicked off in early October 2018 with a two-day workshop with Elsevier. The aim of the workshop was to understand the Pure data model, workflows, publication harvesting, portal and reporting features. The workshop identified key activities, phases and associated draft timelines.

The HDR management solution, SkillsForge, was acquired very quickly after close of tender. DRS worked closely with OGR to co-design the first release of the solution, branded as “Inspire”. This was released in June 2018 and had immediate benefit for HDR students, who could use it to analyse their skills and find and book relevant courses to improve them.

DRS uses Agile delivery methods, so Inspire Release 2 quickly followed the original release, delivering in early October 2018:

• Variation forms allowing students to modify their HDR candidature, and workflows to process these efficiently,
• A workflow for international students requiring an Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) compliance check prior to any change in candidature,
• A dashboard showing the forms that require action that can be accessed by students, supervisors and College HDR coordinators.

In the eResearch survey for 2018, a major concern raised by researchers was the availability, quality, and cost of computing and storage services. Once again, many services were used, with varying costs, so DRS investigated options to simplify the offerings and standardise capabilities. The highest priority identified was to replace the aging High Performance Computing (HPC) system. As a result, the HPC tender was released in October 2018, seeking to address this need.

 

Next Up

The first priority for the Research management project, Pure implementation component, is to import a test set of Organisation, Person and Publication data from ResearchMaster into the Pure development environment to inform key decisions for data migration.

DRS and RDS are also starting to plan implementation of the new ethics approval process (currently being designed by RDS with external assistance) using the Infonetica ERM product.

Inspire Release 3 is being planned. This is a major release that will have wide impact across the Colleges, so additional attention is being given to communication, training, and change management.

The eResearch HPC tender responses are being evaluated with the aim of awarding the tender in 2018 and commencing the implementation project in early 2019.

Information on all initiatives in DRS can be found here, or you can follow our DRS blog.