Date and time
Monday 9 November, 9:00 - 12:30.
Description
This workshop will consist of five presentations which illustrate how complex, and often culturally or ethically sensitive data can be curated and presented with analytical tools and services in an on-line environment. The sessions will cover applications and examplars from the humanities and social sciences; technologies and services that have been developed in several areas; and how new technologies may be harnessed to overcome confidentiality and cultural issues to encourage both the deposition and re-use of data.
Outline
- Overview Paper. The need for quality data management within the Social Science and Humanities community has been apparent for some time. However, the ability to draw these communities together under one architecture has not been simple. To address this a partnership has formed between the Australian Social Science Data Archive, the ANU Supercomputer Facility, PARADISEC and the Australian Dictionary of Biography. This overview will describe the HASS data platform, and the opportunities for researchers to take advantage of the service. In addition to this Australian data platform, this specialised facility includes a researcher focused organisation with governance, policy development, method of prioritisation, and operational curation services. Within the international community, ASSDA has formed an alliance with other similar “peak” archives to share data practise, data services and technologies for the social sciences and humanities. (Mitchell/Evans)
45 minutes + 5 mins question time -
Historical Census and Colonial Data Archive. The creation of this archive has enabled key pre-Federation Census material collected in the colonial era (1833-1901) to be accessed on-line. It assembles material for all colonies in one place for the first time – including images of the original documents tables for downloading etc. Includes demonstration of the HCCDA on-line archive and discussion of the process of converting microfiche data to digital format and associated metadata creation. (Rowse/Hungerford)
30 minutes + 5 mins question time -
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Archive. Access to data held on Indigenous peoples is constrained by a number of ethical and cultural considerations. These potential barriers to access and re-use can be managed with careful access policies and technologies designed to implement these policies and protocols. Of particular imporatnce to Indigenous communities is the opportunity to repatriate data through specially designed portals to present the data in culturally appropriate ways. (Gardiner)
30 minutes + 5 mins question time -
Visualisation of Complex Social Science Data. There is a growing importance of longitudinal and panel data that require new tools and technologies to analyse and present observations that may be collected over many years. Statistical packages typically use a varierty of summary measures to provide researchers with the ability to determine trends but with a consequent ‘loss’ of information. This session will demonstrate some tools which allow data collected to be more easily analysed by using modern visualisation techniques. GIS applications in the social sciences require that researchers can view data from various spatial aggregations eg: postcodes, electoral districts, census units but with resolutions which protect the confidentiality of survey respondents. One of these tools, that builds upon the google maps and google technologies, will be demonstrated. (Pulo/Hawkins)
30 minutes + 5 mins question time -
Providing Data Services for Social Sciences and Humanities. This session will outline the set of requirements and system implementation for supporting the above activities. This includes the front-end, middleware, data hosting capability, along with the deversity of tools available to users which will allow researchers to store, access and analyse the diverse data sources and formats. (Anthony/Hassan/Hungerford)
30 minutes + 5 mins question time
Who should attend
Researchers in the social sciences and humanities. Those providing technology and services supports to these research communities.
About the presenters
Deborah Mitchell. Director, Australian Social Science Data Archive. Deputy Director, Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, ANU.
Ben Evans. Head, ANU Supercomputing Facility.
Tim Rowse. Professorial Fellow, Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy, University of Western Sydney. Project Convenor., HCCDA
Stuart Hungerford. ANUSF, Lead for the HASS Data Platform. Stuart Hungerford is currently a project manager for the ASeSS Data Project activities at the ANU Supercomputer Facility. ASeSS is the ASSDA Services for e-Social Science project.
Stuart has over 25 years experience with software and IT projects, in both the public and private sector, as a developer, consultant and project manager. He has worked with many of the major minicomputer, workstation, PC, networking and software development technologies introduced since the early 1980s.
Stuart's current interests include cloud-based services, metadata standards and the application of IT technologies to research projects in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
Gabrielle Gardiner. Executive Director, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Archive. Manager, e-Scholarship and Communications. University of Technology Sydney.
Steve Hassan. ANUSF Lead for Quantitative Data Services.
Kevin Pulo. ANUSF, Academic Consultant. Kevin Pulo is an Academic Consultant and Systems Programmer at the NCI National Facility and ANU Supercomputing Facility in Canberra. His work includes High-Performance Computing (HPC) scientific application development, HPC systems aspects including NUMA system layout (especially for MPI jobs) and extending user environment module systems, and developing pilot information visualisation systems. He completed his PhD in Computer Science in the field of Information Visualisation at the University of Sydney and NICTA in 2004, where he also obtained his BSc (Adv, Hons I) in 2000. His interests include information visualisation (particularly animated and interactive visualisations), HPC system management, user software environment management, parallel computing and programming, and free/libre/open-source software (particularly Linux).
Rhys Hawkins. ANUSF, Visualisation Programmer.
Joseph Anthony. ANUSF, Manager of ANUSF Data Cloud.