What is eResearch?
'eResearch' is a broad term used to describe a set of activities that harness the power of advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs) and use them to do research.
Characterised by collaboration and held together by fast and high capacity networks, the range of eResearch activities is diverse and multi-disciplinary.
While advanced ICTs are central to eResearch, its methodologies and capabilities have applications in all research disciplines and are not limited to those with a traditional affiliation with advanced computing.
While eResearch aims to advance and expand rather than replace traditional research methodologies, it has also enabled the emergence of entirely new fields of research using new techniques for data mining and analysis, advanced computational algorithms and resource sharing networks.
eResearch encompasses four core areas:
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eResearch facilitates inter-disciplinary, inter-institutional and international research collaboration using distributed computing technologies. Shared access to web collaboration tools and video conferencing facilities has overcome the tyranny of distance and supported distributed research across the country and across the globe.
With improved access to knowledge and information, researchers can perform their research more creatively, efficiently and collaboratively across long distances and disseminate their research outcomes more widely.
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By making sophisticated data repositories available for shared use, eResearch facilitates the storage and cataloguing of data sets both large and small and provides researchers and research insitutions with continuity of access to data, as well as the ability to make data available in controlled ways for reuse by other researchers.
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High performance computing systems deliver enhanced computing power and memory for analysis of large data sets, modelling of complex systems, searching of vast databases, and solving larger and more challenging problems.
From modelling climate change to understanding social networks and multifactorial diseases, advances in high performance computing enable researchers to accomplish tasks that were previously unachievable.By sharing infrastructure that is otherwise unaffordable for individual research groups or institutions, more researchers have access to advanced data processing and modelling techniques.
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Visualisation technologies, including stereoscopic imaging techniques, enable researchers to intuitively understand complex data sets and abstract concepts. By being able to 'see' data sets and objects that are not ordinarily visible, researchers can more easily detect and understand complex patterns of interaction in their data, conduct research in entirely new ways, and bring theoretical concepts to life.
Haptics technologies introduce the sense of virtual 'touch' to a diverse range of research disciplines. From surgical trainees to molecular scientists to digital artists, researchers from across the board are finding new applications for this incredible technology.
As awareness of and access to eResearch facilities and capabilities spreads, dependence on eResearch methodologies is growing.
As an enabler of innovations and new discoveries, eResearch has the potential to boost research effectiveness across all disciplines through increased interactivity between researchers and an enhanced ability to access research outputs.
