Tracking research projects: The heart of open research infrastructure
Research projects are at the heart of building open research infrastructure. Projects take different forms across disciplines, and can range from single-person, practice-based investigations into ephemeral phenomena to multi-decadal massively participative collaborations like the Square Kilometre Array.
Projects are the engine room of knowledge creation and, like a literal engine room, they are often hidden away below decks. However, understanding the evolution of projects, the dynamics and nature of collaborations, and the context and conditions in which data and tools are created and employed is vital to our grasp of the nature and impact of research. Typically project activities are not tracked but this is changing due to high demand.
RAiD is infrastructure offered by the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) to identify and track project activities. It is uniquely placed to enable research organisations, funders, principal investigators and others to get a full picture of project collaborators, activities, use of instruments and infrastructure and overall project impact. RAiD records details of the project interactions such as individual researchers and support staff, institutions that work on and collaborate with the research, outputs from the research and instruments that are used. There is significant interest in RAID internationally with ISO certification due to be awarded in December. ARDC is bolstering RAiD in response to high demand.
The University of Auckland is providing an early use case for RAiD, looking at how to integrate RAiD as a project identifier into their research information management systems. This presentation is an opportunity to learn about the RAiD service development roadmap, explore how the The University of Auckland plan to use RAiD and how you can help shape the evolution of the RAiD service.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Natasha Simons is Associate Director, Data & Services, for the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC)
Yvetter Wharton is eResearch Solutions Lead at the Centre for eResearch, The University of Auckland
