Welcome to our second eNewsletter of 2012. This issue focuses on collaboration, with an article by Bridget Soulsby on the importance and potential of research collaboration tools, and a post by Sander van der Waal of OSS Watch, which demonstrates the value of collaboration in software development. We also fill you in on recent happenings, including the launch of the NeCTAR research cloud, and bring you advance news of Dev8D, Australia’s very own developer ‘unconference’.
In her former role as Business and Operations Manager at the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Bridget Soulsby (left) was responsible for implementing an online collaboration tool for supporting research workflow and outputs. The tool would allow researchers to develop their ideas, collaborate with colleagues and conduct and manage their research. It would also make it possible for them to record and archive previous research and store past and current proposals for funding, serving as an ongoing resource for the centre's researchers and managers.
In her white paper Research collaboration spaces: a research use case, Bridget tells the story of that implementation and its outcomes, both intended and unintended.
NeCTAR has launched the first cloud computing service designed specifically for Australian researchers. Jared Winton and Elizabeth Tatham explain VeRSI's role in this landmark project.
On the surface, it would seem that the effort of collaboration on software results in reduced output. After all, decision-making, consensus-building and collective planning all take time. However, when managed well, open development can significantly increase productivity and improve quality.
In this post, Sander van der Waal (left) of OSS Watch sets out to demonstrate that this is the case. Along the way, he describes how to ensure that collaboration is painless, productive, rewarding and even fun.
The Humanities Networked Infrastructure (HuNI) initiative has been awarded $1.3 million by NeCTAR. This will make it possible, for the first time, to combine data from Australia’s most significant cultural datasets and form a national, cross-disciplinary online research environment for the humanities. Elizabeth Tatham tells us more.
Dev8D AU is a set of events run by software developers for software developers. The inaugural Australian Dev8D, held in 2011, was a great success, and this year’s event promises to be bigger and better. Steve Androulakis and David F Flanders set the scene.
The Sustainable Data from Digital Research conference was held at the University of Melbourne in December 2011. Its core theme was documenting the endangered languages of the Asian-Pacific region. Craig Bellamy fills us in on proceedings and introduces the new Australasian Association for Digital Humanities (aaDH).
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