CeRDI Newsletter Summer 2024

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CeRDI receives Vice Chancellor’s Award

CeRDI recently received the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research Partnerships and Impact. These annual awards recognise exceptional performance by an individual or team that contributes to and supports Federation University’s Strategic Plan.

This award recognises CeRDI’s research achievements as the longest running and most successful research centre at Federation University. CeRDI’s research successes are founded in the long-term partnerships with local, state, national and international organisations, and collaborators. Exemplifying this is the established and ongoing success of our linkage with the Cooperative Research Centres (Food Agility; High Performance Soils) through which strong connections have been forged between industry, government, and other universities.

Collectively, these partnerships have led to university-wide benefits that contribute to institution-wide research income and growth, enhanced reputation and expertise as a leader in research data management and technologies, and HDR candidates and PhD completions with scholarships and top up scholarships, enabled by through CeRDI’s strong industry partnerships.

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  In showcasing its success through these awards, a selection of key CeRDI projects were presented, substantiating its research impact and engagement. These include Visualising Victoria’s Groundwater (VVG ), Online Farm Trials (OFT ), Agricultural Research Federation (AgReFed ), and Visualising Australasia’s Soils (VAS). Each of these initiatives involve multiple partners, received substantial research funding and led to significant and important outputs that continue to have industry impact.

  The Vice Chancellor’s Award was received in December, further enhancing the celebrations linked to CeRDI’s 25-year anniversary. Prof Helen Thompson received the award during an online presentation hosted by the Vice Chancellor. During the presentation, CeRDI was referred to “as an exceptional yet quiet achiever, maintaining strong industry partnerships and funding since its establishment 25 years ago. CeRDI continues to be sought after as a provider of research excellence in data interoperability, agriculture, hazard planning, and regional development, to name just a few areas of research specialisation”.

  A video of the Vice Chancellor delivering the 2023 awards can be viewed at FedFlix .

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CeRDI 25: Another Five of our Best Projects

In our December 2023 newsletter we commenced a series of stories showcasing projects that have marked CeRDI’s successful 25-year anniversary - Visualising Victoria’s Groundwater, Soil Health Knowledge Base, Agricultural Research Federation, Online Farm Trials, Waterwatch and EstuaryWatch.

In this issue, we’re continuing the series, focusing on CeRDI-led research that further demonstrates the unique and important research and technology achievements that characterise CeRDI’s 25-year journey.

 

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  International Groundwater Data Standard Implementation

  CeRDI has played a significant role in the development of an international groundwater data standard and implementation in Australia. GroundWater Markup Language 2 (GWML2) is a standard for the online exchange of groundwater data. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OCG) is an international industry consortium with over 500 organisations and companies participating to develop publicly available interface standards. The OCG standards enable complex spatial information and services to become accessible and valuable across different applications. CeRDI is an active OGC member and has contributed to the development of international data standards focused on addressing the problems created by heterogeneous groundwater data. CeRDI collaborates with member organisations and contributes to OCG developments pertaining to international agricultural and environmental data exchange standards. Following involvement in GWML2 established CeRDI’s enduring reputation with the OGC and the international arena which was further enhanced with Federation University invitation and attendance at the 111th Technical Meeting of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) in Leuvin, Belgium in 2019.  The standard has been implemented by the World Meteorological Organisation and Federation University is participating in this international interoperability experiment: https://www.ogc.org/initiatives/waterqualityie/ 

  Key outputs:
  Brodaric, B., Boisvert, E., Dahlhaus, P. et al. The conceptual schema in geospatial data standard design with application to GroundWaterML2. Open geospatial data, softw. stand. 3, 15 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40965-018-0058-3 

  Brodaric, B., Boisvert, E., Chery, L. et al. Enabling global exchange of groundwater data: GroundWaterML2 (GWML2). Hydrogeology Journal, 26, 733–741 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10040-018-1747-9 
   

  Natural Resources Management Portal

  The Natural Resources Management (NRM) Portal  represents an innovative approach to collaborative, integrated catchment management, providing tools and information for communities and agencies to identify joint priorities for catchment management. The NRM Portal enables datasets to be shared, allowing participants to exchange insights about land management in a collaborative online environment. It provides resources and advice on catchment management, agricultural soil management, nature conservation and on-ground activities. The NRM Portal represents the first time that priorities for land management, determined at different scales and underpinned by different motivations, are available for viewing over an entire region. This has led to important reductions in effort and duplication, and contributing value to existing works identifying where and how local and regional priorities coincide to strategically identify future NRM projects and activities. This project established CeRDI’s strong and enduring relationship with the Catchment Management Authority, while further enhancing the Centre’s regional reputation. The project has been an enduring one, with continuous developments to with the Portal ensuring relevance and currency.

  Natural Resources Management Portal

   

  Key outputs:
  Hansen, B.D., Dahlhaus, P.G., Milne, R.G., MacLeod, A.D., & Pitfield, C. (2019). The Natural Resource Management Planning Portal: Perspectives for NRM Planning and Reporting. Society & Natural Resources, 32(6), 709-719, https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2018.1559383 

  Awards: 
  2016 Victorian Spatial Excellence Award: Environment and Sustainability
   

  Visualising Victoria’s Biodiversity

  Visualising Victoria's Biodiversity (VVB)  is an online community resource providing access to spatial environmental datasets and information about Victoria's environmental values, conservation activities and research. VVB received funding support including from the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust. The extensive spatial data catalogue available on the portal has been compiled from a wide range of sources including key state and national data repositories such as www.data.vic.gov.au , the Victorian Biodiversity Atlas and the Atlas of Living Australia, as well as local and regional information shared by community groups and individuals. At the time of its development, VVB was unique and inspirational, and represented a milestone for CeRDI in relation to functionality. The project launched many similar projects for CeRDI, furthering the Centre’s regional and state-wide reputation.

  Visualising Victoria’s Biodiversity

   

  Key outputs:
  Murphy, A., & Ollerenshaw, A. (2022). Digital data and practice change: The impact of innovative web portals on user knowledge building and decision-making processes. Online Information Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-08-2021-0403 
   

  Historic Urban Landscapes Ballarat 

  This 2016 project represents an important collaboration between the City of Ballarat and CeRDI leading to the development of an interactive web portal  that engages community and enables users to easily access authoritative and credible information about Ballarat. Innovative spatial mapping and knowledge management tools ensure that Ballarat continues to retain its character, landscape and cultural significance as it grows. The portal was developed to create awareness of the urban landscape and its cultural significance to empower the community and local organisations to contribute and protect Ballarat’s unique historic urban landscape. This important project launched CeRDI’s capacity to apply digital spatial mapping with the urban planning and mapping. Strong local collaborations were established for CeRDI through this project that have continued over time. It has been recognised internationally and was the recipient of a prestigious state-wide award.

  Historic Urban Landscapes Ballarat

   

  Key outputs:
  Murphy, A., & Ollerenshaw, A. (2022). Digital data and practice change: The impact of innovative web portals on user knowledge building and decision-making processes. Online Information Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-08-2021-0403 

  Awards:
  2015 Victorian Spatial Excellence Award: People and community.
   

  State Wide Integrated Flora and Fauna Teams

  State Wide Integrated Flora and Fauna Teams (SWIFFT)  is a network for knowledge sharing and information exchange that supports conservation and management of threatened species, biodiversity and the natural environment across Victoria. The SWIFFT portal offers a range of information sharing tools to access data, knowledge, research and events from a wide range of conservation organisations, government agencies, research centres, community groups and experts. Embedded video and web conferencing technologies enable participants from diverse organisations to connect and can join virtual meetings, expanding the opportunities for knowledge sharing and joint action through a central information portal. Regular updates to the portal, informed by stakeholder input, ensures the platform’s currency, visual appeal, useability, and accessibility of information. SWIFFT is a community initiative supported by CeRDI, the Ballarat Environment Network, DEECA and the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust. For CeRDI, this project established its reputation within the ecological disciplines, creating strong local and state collaborations with enduring outcomes which has led to CeRDI’s involvement in projects, including Moth Tracker , a citizen science project with Zoos Victoria.

  State Wide Integrated Flora and Fauna Teams

   

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GRDC Data Partnership Initiative

The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) Data Partnership Initiative is a $2.8 million investment over 18 months bringing together 12 of GRDC’s partner organisations and aims to develop their capacity to manage research data assets in such a way that they can be accessed and reused for further research. This project aligns with the FAIR Data Principles that research data should be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. To address the ‘findable’ component, the GRDC developed a Data Catalogue which would contain metadata records for GRDC co-owned data assets to enable data discovery.

As a foundation partner on the project, Federation University instigated a Community of Practice, building a collaboration between project partners. Through this role, CeRDI supported GRDC and its major research partners to populate the Data Catalogue with a rich set of metadata records relating to valuable data assets that had been generated over the previous 10 years of GRDC investment. Prof Helen Thompson, Jennifer Corbett, Peggy Hsu, Richard Archer and Dr Carolyn Staines led Federation’s engagement on the Initiative.

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  Key project milestones were recently completed for the project, including a report prepared by the Federation team, documenting the research findings and key activities undertaken on the project. Key learnings from the research included the importance of ongoing and future knowledge sharing activities associated with data initiatives.

  Above: The Community of Practice online meetings were supported by CeRDI’s Peggy Hsu and Jennifer Corbett

  Establishing a Community of Practice was a central feature of the project which led to the successful implementation and ongoing support between research partners and the GRDC. Other outcomes were also documented in the report, including developing a strong communications plan about data assets and FAIR data for broader industry understanding and integration, and improving metadata records for cropping research trials.

  Partners on the GRDC Data Partnerships Initiative include Agriculture Victoria, Curtin University, WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Murdoch University, NSW Department of Primary Industries, Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, South Australian Research and Development Institute, University of Adelaide, University of Queensland, University of Sydney, University of Western Australia and Federation University.

  Data partnership builds expertise to harness data treasure trove | Groundcover 

  GRDC Data Catalogue: https://grdc.aristotlecloud.io/home/ 

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Australian National Soil Information System

The Australian National Soil Information System (ANSIS)  provides access to nationally consistent soil data and information to support the sustainable management of soils. ANSIS Phase 1 was developed through a two year project (2022-2024) undertaken by CSIRO for the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF).

The description, transfer, and harmonisation of nationally consistent data through ANSIS required information exchange standards. Recognising this, the standards project was delivered under ANSIS. Federation University (lead Dr Megan Wong, CeRDI) and experts from CSIRO Environmental Informatics and Manaaki Whenua were engaged on the project. 

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  A key component of the ANSIS Standards project involved leveraging the wealth of knowledge of experts of the Australian soil community, translating the Australian Soil and Land Survey Field Handbooks into machine actionable vocabularies and ontologies. The resources were then implemented through a data exchange schema for ANSIS Phase 1. 

  This work has played a key role in making well-described harmonised data available through ANSIS via distributed third-party application programme interfaces (API). The standards help ensure that data retains its meaning as it travels across the internet. This enhances the reuse potential of soil data. The governance, including maintenance of these resources, was also considered so that they will continue to enable the delivery of priorities across the National Soil Strategy  (DAWE 2021).

  The machine actionable vocabularies and ontologies are available for reuse by custodians of soil data. They can be discovered through Research Vocabularies Australia , or ANSIS Data  and ANSIS Standards  web pages.

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Enabling Soil Data: Research and Resource

The Managing and Enabling Soil Data (ESD) project, an initiative between CeRDI and the Cooperative Research Centre for High Performance Soils (Soil CRC), aims to develop a fit-for-purpose approach to better manage data for future Soil CRC projects.

This two-year project was designed to respond to the rapid advances in technology that are leading to exponential growth in available soils data. Documenting soil data is essential for improved soil security, yet there are challenges associated with soil data management. These include difficulties and costs associated with managing this data as an enduring asset. Ensuring the interoperability and availability of soil data is essential as new technologies are being used.

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  The ESD researcher team at Federation, including Dr Nathan Robinson, Jude Channon and Dr Kay Steele, have undertaken research to understand current soil data management practices and needs, with specific application to Soil CRC projects. Data was collected from researchers, project partners and post graduate students. The findings provide important insights about the use of current research data management practices. A range of training and education tools have been developed which have been informed by the research. These will assist researchers to better manage their research data and improve the visibility (and thereby opportunity for reuse) of current soil data, incorporating data from new technologies for soils, improving accessibility of soils data in the future.

  The project team have delivered two webinars, including an overview about data management and its importance to good research practices. This webinar was recently launched and is available on the Soil CRC website . Another topical webinar delivers information about metadata including what it is and how it is created. Other education resources have also been created, including a tips and tricks help sheet for good data management practice. Information has also been prepared about licencing and publishing data, with a data repository decision tree developed to assist with navigating steps associated with data publishing.

  This project is nearing its successful completion, culminating in the release of a guide for creating and maintaining metadata, that will link to domain specific repositories. Should you be interested in discussing the training materials or to collaborate on data management education and training, please contact Jude Channon, E: j.channon@federation.edu.au 

  For further details: Soil CRC | Programs & Projects | CRC for High Performance Soils 

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My Farm Dashboard

A new partnership is being developed with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI) to further extend the climatic data in the My Farm Dashboard. NSW DPI have developed a range of seasonal summaries and drought indicators to provide the agricultural sector with important decision support information. The NSW DPI Seasonal Conditions Team use the DPI Enhanced Drought Information System II (EDIS II)  to generate drought information and indicator products down to a one kilometre grid resolution.

The DPI Combined Drought Indicator (CDI) provides a snapshot of current seasonal conditions for NSW based on rainfall, soil moisture and modelled pasture and crop growth indices. The CDI defines an area of NSW to be in a drought category if any of the indices fall below 30% when compared to historical records. 

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  Through the new partnership, CeRDI will work with NSW DPI to bring EDIS II data and information into the My Farm Dashboard platform . My Farm Dashboard users will be able to access and add EDIS II products, such as the CDI, to their information dashboard for their specific farm location alongside other existing decision support data products already available. 

  The first phase of the partnership will be working on establishing automated exchange of data between the EDIS II and My Farm Dashboard systems and developing dashboard cards to visualise CDI data and information for the end user. 

  The partnership with NSW DPI is part of an ongoing objective to expand the applicability and benefit of the My Farm Dashboard platform over a wider geographic area and increased range of agricultural enterprises. 

  https://www.cerdi.edu.au/MyFarmDashboard

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Managing and Sharing Research Data – Researchers’ Points of View

The Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) has been conducting a program, Institutional Underpinnings, which aims to coordinate research data management across Australian universities. Federation University has been a partner in this program and, as part of this, a survey of Federation University researchers to determine their understanding of research data management and data sharing. CeRDI researchers were subsequently engaged in the analysis and interpretation of the survey results.

The move to make research data openly available and accessible to other researchers is a relatively recent approach, and this was reflected in the survey findings. While some were aware of the notion of “open” data and the data management processes required to achieve this, others were unfamiliar with it or considered it undesirable. The results of the survey suggested there were a number of knowledge gaps that needed to be addressed through skills development and procedural changes.

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Online Farm Trials Update

Online Farm Trials (OFT)  provides access to data collected from on-farm and field-based cropping research trials. The portal is a collaboration between CeRDI and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC). 

In the period to June 2026, there are a range of exiting new developments planned for OFT with CeRDI to continue to provide research input and industry support aligned to the portal’s expansion. Key team members include Dr Nathan Robinson, Dr Aakansha Chadha and Dr Alison Ollerenshaw. 

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  Recently, Nathan and Aakansha travelled widely to attend GRDC research updates in Bendigo, Adelaide and Perth. At each event they promoted Online Farm Trials with a dedicated event stand. These events are essential industry forums, providing researchers and other industry stakeholders with information and updates informed by the latest research from across the grains and cropping industry. 

  Above: Attending the GRDC research updates in Adelaide in February are CeRDI ‘s Aakansha Chadha and Nathan Robinson with GRDC Managing Director, Nigel Hart.

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CeRDI Staff Celebrate Service Milestones

Paul Feely receives his 20-year service milestone from Prof Chris Hutchison

In late 2023, the University celebrated Service Milestones for 80 staff who have shown their ongoing dedication to the University, TAFE and predecessor institutions. Among the recipients were members of the CeRDI technical team. Paul Feely, Senior Systems Analyst programmer, celebrated his 20-year service milestone, which was acknowledge by Prof Chris Hutchison, during the CeRDI 25-year anniversary celebrations. Web developer and programmer Sudeera Abeywickrema, was also acknowledged for his service to the University, receiving a 10-year milestone award.

The milestone award recipients from the University are available at: 2023 University Milestone Awards 

 

 

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  Above: Sudeera 10-year service milestone acknowledgement

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News Snippets:

Soil CRC funding applications: CeRDI recently submitted funding applications to the Soil Cooperative Research Centre for High Performance Soils (Soil CRC). The applications involved extending research for two current projects, Visualising Australasia’s Soils  and Soil Indicators. If successful, funding will extend the research and associated activities for these projects over the coming years.

Did you know? You can access CeRDI annual reports from our website. Recent updates allow PDF access to our report from 2014 onwards. The reports are a valuable record of CeRDI’s progress and research activities, documenting a small part of the Centre’s 25-year history. https://www.cerdi.edu.au/AnnualReports

 

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  Recent Journal publications:

              Bahlo, C. (in press). Advancing FAIR Agricultural Data: the AgReFed FAIR Assessment Tool. Data Science Journal. 

              Smith, G., Ascui, F., O’Grady, A., & Pinkard., E. (2024). Indicators for measuring and reporting corporate nature-related impacts, dependencies, and risks. Environmental and Sustainability Indicators, 22, 100351. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indic.2024.100351 
   

  Australian Agricultural Traceability Strategic Reference Group: Participation in a national reference group by data policy manager CeRDI, Gabi Ceregra, was recently referenced in a media release from the Food Agility Cooperative Research Centre (Food Agility CRC). Gabi is representing the Food Agility CRC on the reference group which has been established to help industry traceability systems and boost Australia’s biosecurity and trade relationships. The group will focus on current and emerging issues, research priorities and implementation approaches for Australia’s agricultural traceability systems. For further information:

              Food Agility CRC media release: https://www.foodagility.com/posts/food-agility-joins-national-traceability-reference-group 

              Ministerial media release: https://minister.agriculture.gov.au/watt/media-releases/australian-agricultural-strategic-reference-group 
   

  Staffing news: In December, we bid farewell to Senior Technical Lead Scott Limmer. Scott was an integral member of the technical team, having been employed in CeRDI for 16 years. Dave Ryan who has been working closely on the VAS project, providing administrative and technical support, is also leaving CeRDI. We wish Scott and Dave all the best for the future and in their new appointments.

  Members of the CeRDI team recently received academic promotion from the University. Helen Thompson was promoted to Professor, Dr Megan Wong was promoted to Research Fellow and Dr Alison Ollerenshaw was promoted to the role of Senior Research Fellow.

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Staff Profile: Dr Alicia Reynolds, Research Associate, CeRDI

Dr Alicia Reynolds

Alicia Reynolds brings a wide range of analytical chemistry experience to the CeRDI team. Alicia developed GC-MS/MS methods during her honours year and continued working for consulting and research organisations as an analytical chemist until 2010. She then completed a PhD with CSIRO in degradation of amine absorbents during pilot scale post-combustion capture (PCC) of CO2 from coal fired power stations. Recent industry-led research projects include responsible uses of Victorian brown coal (e.g., humic acid-based soil amendments, hydrogen and other materials), compost processing and contaminants management, and fish farm waste derived soil amendment development. Alicia's core interests include statistical methods for reducing large datasets to useful information, advanced analytical chemistry, and using research methods to solve real-world problems. In her role at CeRDI, Alicia is contributing to data analysis and associated processes on various projects, including Visualising Australasia’s Soils. Alicia is also affiliated with the Future Regions Research Centre, Carbon Technology Research Group.

https://www.cerdi.edu.au/cb_pages/alicia_reynolds.php

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HDR news:

HDR candidate: Hannah Faraone

New CeRDI HDR candidates:

Hannah Faraone recently commenced her PhD studies with CeRDI. Hannah is researching the impact of macrolitter on birdlife in the Port Phillip Region and Greater Melbourne. Hannah’s supervisors include Dr. Birgita Hansen (principal), and associate supervisors Dr. Nick Schultz (Federation University) and Dr. Jackie Myers (RMIT), with industry supervisor Kimberley MacDonald (DEECA). https://www.cerdi.edu.au/HDRStudents#HannahFaraone

Rida Mazhar also recently commenced her PhD studies with CeRDI. The topic of Rida's PhD is: Maximising data integration and interoperability for better regional outcomes. Supervisors: Helen Thompson (principal), and associate supervisor Shoaib Riaz. https://www.cerdi.edu.au/HDRStudents#RidaMazhar

PhD Completion: Congratulations to Dr Basharat Ali who received news of the successful completion of a Doctor of Philosophy. Basharat is an alumni of CeRDI. His PhD research “Investigating the roles of data, digital agriculture and resilience in agricultural performance”. Supervisors: Assoc Prof Peter Dahlhaus, Prof Helen Thompson, and Dr Nathan Robinson. Further information about Basharat’s PhD is available on the CeRDI website: https://www.cerdi.edu.au/cb_pages/precision_conservation_agricultural_practices.php

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About CeRDI

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