Outreach Activities

One of the key aims of VeRSI is to increase the uptake of eResearch. VeRSI is achieving this through an active program of outreach and awareness raising.

The Outreach program engages with the research and research-support communities at all partner universities through workshops, showcases, and presentations, particularly the Life Science Computation Seminar Series and popular eCoffee (eResearch + coffee) sessions.

In addition to the plethora of events in the second half of each year, such as our University partner eResearch showcase events, our own showcase and the eResearch Australasia conference, we promote VeRSI supported research through a range of publications:

• VeRSI Codex, an overview of all our acitivites
• Quarterly eNewsletters
• Videos
• Case Studies
• Annual Report
• This Website

The Outreach and Awareness team also produce user manuals for our collaborators and assist in useability testing of VeRSI developed solutions.

VeRSI recognises the challenges inherent in communication and uptake of eResearch. We listen to the community through our annual survey to find out what is driving engagement with eResearch as well as the barriers to uptake. We are continually learning about the best way to engage with the community about eResearch and are sharing these findings through white papers, conference posters, and publications. Additionally we are undertaking research into the human factors that influence the use of collaboration tools (skype, Evo, video conferencing etc) in international research collaborations, particularly in the biomedical sciences.