CeRDI Newsletter Summer 2017

 

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Federation University and Deakin University collaborate on NHMRC application

Cogitative Impairment Indicator

CeRDI staff and Federation University’s Professor Britt Klein (Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor – Research and Innovation Portfolio, Centre for Biopsychosocial and eHealth Research and Innovation and the Faculty of Health) are collaborating with a team of researchers from Deakin University, University of Canberra and Ballarat Health Services, led by Associate Professor Mark Yates, in an application to NHMRC for funding to accelerate and evaluate the implementation of an evidence-informed, nationally consistent cognitive impairment care program in hospital acute settings.

The role of the Federation University team will be to develop the online portal which will enable access to a care-bundle and a suite of education and service change programs to assist health services to provide quality cognitive impairment care. The portal will also provide access to benchmarking data and visualisation and analysis tools to assist health services track their progress in implementation of the program and with improvement, using measures related to cognitive impairment care.

Funding decisions for the NHMRC Boosting Dementia Research Grants are expected prior to 30 June 2017.

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Dementia Pathways Tool: planned updates

Over the coming months, CeRDI will work closely with Deakin University and Ballarat Health Services’ Associate Professor Mark Yates to implement important upgrades to the content of the Dementia Pathways Tool.

Dementia Pathways Tool: Planned updates

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  The Dementia Pathways Tool provides a comprehensive yet intuitive web-based repository of dementia-related information, tools, service directories and resources and, unlike many other resources, is publicly available. It provides community access to information about dementia that may be of relevance, including family and carer support, financial and legal issues, driving capabilities and powers of attorney.

  The planned updates will offer practitioners and the community additional information and resources via the Dementia Pathways Tool. Associate Professor Yates secured funding for this project from Lundbeck, a Danish international pharmaceutical company engaged in the research and development, production, marketing and sale of drugs used in the treatment of disorders of the central nervous system.

  The Dementia Pathways Tool is available at www.dementiapathways.com.au

   

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Online Farm Trials update: new collaborators

The Facey Group, based in Western Australia, have recently joined the Online Farm Trials (OFT) project, having just published the results from 18 research trials conducted between 2012 and 2014.

Online Farm Trials update: new collaborators

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  Online Farm Trials (OFT) is a collaborative project putting cropping research knowledge online and linking it to national data. OFT applies digital technologies to provide access to a vast library of grains industry research. CeRDI, under the management of Research Associate Rob Milne, have been instrumental in developing the technology and implementing OFT nationally. The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) is the industry partner and project funder of OFT.

  The latest trial research provided by the Facey Group assists in building national trial data. Formed in 2001, the Facey Group is bringing the community together to work towards achieving economic, social and environmental sustainability for the region. Farmers within this group identified a need to conduct trials and demonstrations in the local region, with the expectation that access to research information would enable farmers to adopt practices that they saw as beneficial and would increase their production and profits.

  The access to such information has now been improved markedly through publication of trial results on OFT. Research topics include ‘Wheat agronomy on water repellent sands’, ‘Wheat response to N and K’ and ‘Maximising wheat production through variety selection and better agronomy’. The published trial projects include exportable results data on a variety of metrics including grain yield, soil organic carbon, fertiliser cost and screenings.

  The OFT team thank Sarah Hyde, Executive Officer of Facey Group for her assistance in publishing the Facey Group trials on OFT.

  The Riverine Plains groups has also recently added a significant number of new trials to OFT, with 44 new trial projects from 2013 to 2015 now available for public viewing and data export. Thanks to Riverine Plains Executive Officer, Fiona Hart, and Finance Officer, Kate Coffey, for their support and assistance in the publishing of these trials. There are now 96 trial projects published by Riverine Plains, these spanning 11 years of research trials: a great information resource for grains researchers and farmers.

  For more information about OFT see www.farmtrials.com.au or contact Rob Milne, CeRDI Research Associate: r.milne@federation.edu.au

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eResearch and CeRDI have significant roles in Federation University’s Research Priority Areas

	Professor Leigh Sullivan, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation), centre, with senior academics at the launch of Federation University’s new research priority areas.

In late November 2016, Federation University announced its research priority areas aimed at expanding the University’s research potential.

Professor Leigh Sullivan, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) named the five research priority areas as:

• Information Forensics and Security;
• Transformative and Preventative Health;
• History and Heritage;
• Improving Policy and Practice in Vocational Education and Training; and
• Dynamic Landscapes.

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  Within the Dynamic Landscapes research priority area, CeRDI is leading the research cluster Digital Agriculture and Agronomy, one of four research clusters.

  In addition, CeRDI is participating in two other research priority areas: Transformative and Preventative Health, leveraging collaborative research with Associate Professor Rochelle Eime in sport and recreation participation (see Sport and Recreation Spatial portal), collaborative research with Professor Caroline Finch in injury prevention (see PhD student Himalaya Singh’s research profiled in CeRDI Newsletter Summer 2016) and History and Heritage, leveraging its research in Visualising Ballarat and Historic Urban Landscapes (see the HUL/Visualising Ballarat portal).

  Associate Professor Helen Thompson, Director of CeRDI commented, “CeRDI’s role in the research priority areas is recognition of the potentially transformative role of eResearch. CeRDI looks forward to further strengthening the collaborative relationships it has with researchers across Federation University’s campuses and to contributing to the priority research areas.”

  Further information about Federation University’s research priority areas may be obtained from the announcement of the research priority areas in Federation University News.

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Journal paper by CeRDI researchers’ tops list of most read articles for 2016

Making the invisible visible: the impact of federating groundwater data in Victoria, Australia

A paper by CeRDI researchers published in the Journal of Hydroinformatics was recently identified by International Water Association Publishing as the most read journal article published in 2016.

The article entitled "Making the invisible visible: the impact of federating groundwater data in Victoria, Australia", was prepared by Associate Professor Peter Dahlhaus, Dr Angela Murphy and CeRDI colleagues and outlines the research findings from extensive social impact research on the Visualising Victoria’s Groundwater (VVG) web portal.

The full article is free to access and available at: Making the invisible visible: the impact of federating groundwater data in Victoria, Australia http://jh.iwaponline.com/content/18/2/238

For further information about VVG, visit: www.vvg.org.au






 

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River Detectives website

In conjunction with the North Central Catchment Management Authority (CMA), CeRDI recently completed significant upgrades to the River Detectives website.

River Detectives Website

River Detectives is a school-based program supporting teachers and school students to explore local waterways and to understand their important relationships to the surrounding landscape and environment. A unique feature of River Detectives is its water monitoring program whereby school groups can arrange to collect and analyse water science data. The website enables school groups to submit their data, the same data as Waterwatch volunteers, through the child/student friendly River Detectives website.

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  The upgrades to the website – completed by the CeRDI team of Paul Feely, Sudeera Abeywickrema and Drew Collins – included:

  • a refreshed design with restructured content;
  • direct integration with the Waterwatch database for Water Quality, Water Bug and Habitat data;
  • interactive maps using Waterwatch, River Detectives and Atlas of Living Australia data; and
  • expansion to multiple CMA regions (originally the website was developed for the North Central CMA only).

  The new website coincided with the commencement of the 2017 school year.

  For further information about River Detectives, visit: www.riverdetectives.net.au

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Update: pilot project identifying rural alcohol culture and change in the Wimmera

CeRDI was recently commissioned to undertake research and to promote cultural change towards reducing alcohol use for youth in Horsham. The project was funded through VicHealth’s Alcohol Culture Change Grants for Local Councils and is being led by CeRDI researcher Dr Angela Murphy together with Meghan Taylor and Jennifer Corbett.

CERDI researchers and participants during a forum in February for the rural alcohol and change project in the Wimmera

Extensive work over the last few months has ensured that all three stages of this project are well on-track for completion. The first stage involved a comprehensive review of the published literature. This has been completed and is consolidated in a comprehensive literature review comprising current knowledge and best practices for addressing alcohol use in young people, particularly within rural areas

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  A range of important insights were identified through the review including best practice strategies and interventions. Important strategies for the prevention and intervention of alcohol misuse amongst young people were found to involve collaboration with a wide range of committed stakeholders from within affected communities. Stakeholders included education providers, media, liquor-sales outlets, parents of young people, and the young people themselves. Social marketing was another method found to be successful in both addressing alcohol misuse and promoting positive behaviour change.

  Another core research activity associated with this project has been extensive data collection from representatives across the Horsham community. Consultation including interviews (n = 37) and forums were conducted with young people and representatives from sports association, youth services, local government, police, health and community services, ambulance, education providers. Surveys were also widely disseminated across the community with over 150 completed surveys received to date. This data will assist in constructing an understanding of the current practices of alcohol consumption and alcohol misuse for the region.

  These research data will be used to inform the development of the final phase for this project comprising a model to promote a shift in existing alcohol culture among rural young people. The model will provide a multi-level strategy targeting key stakeholders; young people, parents and the wider community. A final report from this research will be completed in coming weeks with findings expected to provide the foundation for another funding submission to VicHealth to conduct stage two of the project. Stage two will comprise the implementation of the proposed model and associated strategies within the region.

  For further information contact Dr Angela Murphy: aa.murphy@federation.edu.au

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‘Let’s Talk Water’ forum

(L-R): Dr Birgita Hansen (Federation University), Dr Jessie Harman (Federation University), A/Prof Andrew Barton (Federation University), Jeremy Johnson (CHW), David Ebbs (Federation University), A/Prof Peter Dahlhaus (Federation University) and Prof Tim Fletcher (University of Melbourne)

Federation University and Central Highlands Water (CHW) held a combined ‘Water Forum’ in Ballarat during December. The forum was held by open invitation to anyone interested in attending. It involved approximately 60 delegates from Federation University, CHW, Ballarat City Council and other authorities with responsibility for water management, and the general public.

CeRDI had a strong presence at the forum both among the presenters and the attendees. CeRDI’s principal research fellow, Associate Professor Peter Dahlhaus, presented on ‘Groundwater around Ballarat’.

CeRDI PhD student David Ebbs also presented at the forum on the drivers of Ballarat’s water demand, and CeRDI research fellow Dr Birgita Hansen was a facilitator at the forum. Other presentations from Federation University staff at the forum included ‘Sharing water supplies under climate change’ (Associate Professor Andrew Barton) and ‘Trends and variability in hydroclimate’ (Professor Peter Gell). Professor Tim Fletcher from the University of Melbourne presented on ‘Restoring an Urban Stream’.

The forum was well received and demonstrated how valuable these and similar events can be in enabling researchers to share and exchange knowledge with other interested groups from the community. It is hoped that the forum will become a regular event.

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Staff profile: Heath Gillett, Senior Programmer

Heath Gillet

Heath Gillett commenced work with CeRDI in 2009 after completing a Bachelor of Computing at Federation University and graduating with Distinction. Heath is an experienced web developer in PHP / MySQL / Javascript / Database design and has a strong interest in Geospatial (GIS) technologies and mapping infrastructure. His GIS skills span many aspects including generating and manipulating geospatial layers (in QGIS) through to building and maintaining the CeRDI geospatial infrastructure (Geoserver, Openlayers, Leaflet).

Since beginning work at CeRDI, Heath has contributed to many CeRDI projects, enabling him to both showcase, as well as extend, his programming skills. Project highlights include the work completed with the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) Final Reports system. This project involved digitising and publishing to the web all funded GRDC reports. Heath contributed to building and maintaining the complex editing and approval system prior to report publication.

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  Heath also managed the programming component for the Victorian Fire Risk Register (VFRR) mapping tool. VFRR is an online system to enable designated community representatives to record at risk assets in their region in a simple-to-use web system replacing the existing paper based system and reliance on VFRR staff to digitise this information.

  Another large project Heath was closely involved with was ClimateReady. This project involved developing a climate adaptation tool for three councils in south west Melbourne (Kingston, Bayside, Mornington Peninsula) enabling the community to develop a climate adaptation plan encouraging businesses and residents to prepare for climate change.

  Currently, Heath is working with Western Alliance for Greenhouse Action (WAGA). This project involves a partnership with eight councils in Melbourne’s west working collaboratively with each other and their communities to respond to regional climate change. Heath is responsible for building a tool to enable the capture, analysis and reporting of data by council members.

  In addition, Heath is closely involved in building and maintaining many of CeRDI’s internal systems including the Content Builder for content management, and Maynard for maintaining spatial mapping portals.

  Heath enjoys learning new technologies and developing innovative methods to solve problems. He particularly likes working on projects based around science, technology, and sport having primarily been involved in designing and developing databases and administration systems built to record and analyse datasets.

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Higher Degree by Research student: Shirish Sharma

Sharish Sharma

Shirish commenced his PhD studies with CeRDI in March 2016, focusing on an Interoperable framework to integrate data-mining in web-based geoportals.

Shirish’s research will examine Smart Cities and the visualisation of geospatial data and citizen engagement practices. The context to this research pertains to the rise in urbanisation and the concept of smart cities in gaining importance through technology. Smart cities use information technology solutions to enhance the development and management of infrastructure, assets, policies and practices within a city. Geospatial data visualisation offers significant potential within the context of Smart Cities providing an opportunity to harvest geospatial information including that available from social media and web based citizen data sources.

Through his research, Shirish aims to deliver a novel and interoperable framework for integrating geospatial information mined from web-based citizen sources into web-based geoportals, thus enriching existing information that are usually sourced from authoritative data sources.

Shirish’s PhD is being undertaken within CeRDI with support from Federation University’s Faculty of Science and Technology. CSIRO Data61 is the industry partner for this research.

Shirish is currently in the final stages of preparing for confirmation of candidature.

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Postgraduate student news

December graduations: Congratulations to Nathan Robinson and Adam Marshall who were awarded their degrees from Federation University in December 2016.

Nathan graduated with a PhD following completion of research assessing productive soil-landscapes in Victoria using digital soil mapping.

Adam graduated with a Master of Applied Science for his research examining precipitation and evaporative aspects of the terrestrial water balance in Central Victoria and their relationship to large-scale climate drivers during the growing season.

Both Nathan and Adam were supervised by CeRDI’s Associate Professor Peter Dahlhaus.

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About CeRDI

The Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI) is a research centre at Federation University focused on:

• the application of information and communications technology (ICT) and the development of innovative, world class knowledge management systems;
• significantly advancing the digital literacy and knowledge management capabilities of partner organisations;
• fostering partnerships for the development and implementation of eResearch with industry, government and academia; and
• measuring the impact of eResearch and digital innovation through longitudinal research.

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Contact CeRDI

For further details about CeRDI’s diverse portfolio of research please visit our website: www.cerdi.edu.au, or contact Director, Associate Professor Helen Thompson: h.thompson@federation.edu.au

Mailing Address

Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation
Federation University
PO Box 691
Ballarat Vic 3353

Office Location

Suite 15, Greenhill Enterprise Centre
Ballarat Technology Park
University Drive
Mount Helen Vic 3350

Phone: +61 3 5327 9314
Email: support@cerdi.edu.au

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