Training BoF Building and Supporting a New Zealand Digital Literacy Training Community

It will be an interactive session and includes a panel (20 min) of eResearch professionals speaking about their roles in creating communities – describing the barriers as well as the successes – and future plans, opportunities, and maybe even a few ‘dream big’ moments!

The goal of this BoF is to discuss and share ideas on how to nourish and grow a Community of Practice and to (not-so-sneakily) actively create or continue to evolve collegial relationships both within New Zealand and internationally.

The session will have a short (10 min) debrief, and all discussions will be documented for future action and sharing. Anyone interested to stay in contact is welcome to join the online ENRICH Community of Practice, currently hosted on Slack.

Dr Sara King is an eResearch Analyst with Australia’s academic and research network provider, AARNet. She has extensive experience in researcher engagement and training, with expertise in research data and technologies in the Humanities and Social Science (HASS) research areas.

Natasha Simons is Associate Director, Skilled Workforce, for the Australian Research Data Commons (formerly ANDS, RDS and Nectar). With a background in libraries, IT and eResearch, Natasha has a history of developing policy, technical infrastructure (with a focus on persistent identifiers) and skills to support research.

Dr Carina Kemp is the Director of eResearch for AARNet responsible for making the network work the best it can for research in Australia. She works with the Australian and international research community to find and implement tools that sit above the network to make technology and data research ready. Previous to joining AARNet, Dr Kemp was the Chief Information Officer at Geoscience Australia. -

Dr Paula Andrea Martinez is the National Training Coordinator for the Characterisation Community in Australia. Her interests are on research methods development and now outreach and advocacy in data and software best practices.

Megan Guidry is the Regional Coordinator for the Carpentries in New Zealand and also works as the training coordinator for the New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI). Her main priority is raising the eResearch capability in New Zealand through training delivery and community building

Ngoni Faya is Genomics Aotearoa’s Training Coordinator, tasked with supporting and building capacity and capability in bioinformatics for New Zealand. Based at the University of Otago, he will be working with Genomics Aotearoa partners across New Zealand to develop resources and technologies that provide international level training for genomics and bioinformatics.

Murray Cadzow is a Teaching Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Otago. He is both a Carpentries instructor and instructor trainer. His teaching focus is on delivering digital literacy training to researchers, and the development and support of the local Carpentries community at Otago. His research involves the use of large datasets to investigate the genetic basis of Gout in Māori and Polynesian populations.

Fabiana Kubke is a Neuroscientist at the University of Auckland and is a strong advocate for developing and supporting the training and development of digital literacy for students and researchers.