2021eResearchReport - Flipbook - Page 8
1: Governance
Includes support for a range of issues around
legislation, compliance and data protection,
particularly in the negotiation of research grants
and contracts for international collaboration.
2: Compute
Advanced scientific computing, including
high-performance computing and cloud
computing.
3: Research software
%
Support and guidance around the use of software
for old research, regulatory compliance and
project management of research.
3.4
7.7
Research data
management
Access and
visibility
3.4%
ta
Da rage
Sto %
6.0%
Digital Scholarship
4: Advocacy
v
Go
%
23.1
nce
erna
Including outreach and training, such as the
Emerging Researcher Programme seminar series
and tailor-made seminars for research groups and
departments.
5: Data storage
Long-term secure storage for research data.
6: Digital scholarship
Support for the use of digital methods of inquiry,
research, publication and preservation to achieve
open scholarship and research goals.
.4
21 h S
c
eResearch Consultant
July 2020 to June 2021
ear
Dr Dale Peters
eResearch support
engagements
Re s
Also worth celebrating was the
successful completion of the Research
Data Integration Project (RDIP),
integrating our research support systems
throughout the research lifecycle to help
you, the researcher, avoid duplication
and achieve the goals of reproducible
research. Researchers can expect an
increased rate of citation, and those
who have linked their personal ORCID
identifier on eRA will have an up-to-date
list of contributions at their fingertips for
their next CV.
A notable highlight of the year has
been the inclusion of eResearch in the
development of several proposals for
grant funding. External resources have
become increasingly contested, and
funder compliance increasingly complex.
eResearch support addresses many
of these requirements throughout the
research lifecycle; including capacity
building, data management, scientific
communication, research infrastructure
and coordination of support services. As
such, eResearch is increasingly invited to
participate directly in research consortia
to enable the paradigm shift in the
local African context from the datarich – information-poor scenario to one
in which African scientists control and
are rightfully attributed for data that is
generated locally.
8%
Reflecting on the disruption of research
while working from home during the
lockdown, it seems odd to admit that
the support services provided by
eResearch were barely affected - it is
after all a virtual distributed service
which readily adapted to online
engagement. However, one can infer
from usage-data patterns of eResearch
services that postgraduate students
would seem to have been seriously
impacted by the disruption. In areas
of regular use, computational research
for example, postgraduate students
represented an overwhelming majority
of users. Requests for access to online
survey software peaked in response to
the need to move field research online.
Postgraduate students again formed most
of this group of users; and the shift to
online survey methodologies occasioned
critical discussions on changing research
practice, topics regularly included in
seminars offered under the Emerging
Researcher Programme related to online
collaboration, data management, data
privacy, secure data storage and transfer,
and cybersecurity.
Highlights of the year include several
innovations worthy of celebration.
Firstly, the introduction of a new service,
Research Systems Support, fills a gap in
eResearch services to ensure that “things
just work”. Presented here is the support
they provide for research software
platforms such as REDCap, a web
application for building and managing
online surveys and databases, and
iThenticate, the plagiarismdetection software used by
researchers and publishers.
Advo
c
12. acy
2020-2021 eResearch
highlights
of
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tw
a re
%
2 2.2pute
Com
7: Research data management
This is the process which includes the
organisation, storage, preservation and sharing
of data collected and used in a research project.
8: Access and visibility
Includes open access publication of scholarly
work to increase the discoverability and visibility
of scholarly output at UCT.
8
Introduction
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