Discovery & Innovation
The work of CeRDI, as identified in the definition of eResearch, centres on the innovative use of technology to maximise data accessibility and usability across industries and communities. As part of that process, the centre is building the potential to achieve data discoveries in areas such as:
- The measurement of trends across temporal data that has been collected within and across portals
- The mapping of data correlations (across time, space and/or disciplines)
- Data harmonisation and levelling
- Investigating the value of indicators and new parameters for modelling and mapping discipline specific data discoveries.
The cross-disciplinary nature of the CeRDI team means that the centre has capacity to undertake three distinct types of research:
Data Discovery
Two key facilitators for CeRDI research discoveries in data centre on:
- Maximising the exploration and analysis by CeRDI discipline experts of available research-ready data sets
- Expanding, through the mechanism of crowdsourcing and citizen science, the scope of new data included within each spatial knowledge initiative.
Technology Innovation
CeRDI’s capabilities in eResearch ensures full collaboration with research, industry and community partners and to develop eResearch tools that:
- Interoperably integrate data (open data, research data, big data, sensor data, legacy data, crowsourced data)
- Allow the user to answer the frequently asked data/information questions
- Dynamically generate conceptual and predictive (scenario) models
- Make new discoveries and avoid repeating past research
- Measure the impact of the eResearch on decision making and practice change.
Longitudinal Impact
Researchers in CeRDI are currently implementing a programmatic approach to measuring the impact of technology on improved decision making and on supporting practice change. To achieve this impact assessment goal the researchers are applying a longitudinal research design across a range of CeRDI programmatic themes, with a specific focus on the areas of:
What is Data Democracy?
We live in an era where communities can interact with data in ways that were impossible to imagine just a few decades ago. There are many public benefits from accumulating, federating (i.e. making it available) and aggregating data, but the use of data by both governments and private institutes has become highly controversial. This raises important questions about access, rights and community interest in the new digital and geospatial age.