The Australian Research Data Commons

Abstract

A research data commons can provide researchers with the data and resources necessary to conduct world class research. More than this, a research data commons can be transformational in facilitating change in the way research is conducted, in terms of both research culture and the availability of research data and analytical tools. This paper describes frameworks needed to build a transformational data commons, through examination of the development of the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) ARDC was formed in 2018 as part of a 20-year vision to transform Australia's research culture by enabling access to the digital data and eResearch platforms that can significantly enhance research capacity. ARDC is located within both national and international eResearch ecosystems, and its unique positioning must be understood, alongside the achievements of its three predecessor organisations, to understand the niche from which ARDC aims to provide maximum value and impact. Consideration is given to the challenges inherent in both the current Australian ecosystem and beyond, to articulate ARDC's focus going forward. The paper concludes with consideration of the international dimension, drawing on discussions around the development of a global data commons.

Packaging research artefacts with RO-Crate

“…9 The possibilities of consuming 10 RO-Crate metadata with such powerful tools gives another strong reason for using Linked Data as a foundation. This use of mature Web 11 technologies also means its de-…”

“…Multiple initiatives were undertaken to create Data Commons on national, research, and institutional levels. For example, the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) 74 [11] is a national initiative that enables local researchers and industries to access computing infrastructure, training, and curated datasets for data-intensive research. NCI's Genomic Data Commons 75 (GDC) [65] provides the cancer research community with access to a vast volume of genomic and clinical data.…”

“…establishing absolute IRIs for files inside a ZIP archive, detailed in the RO-Crate specification: https://www.researchobject.org/ro-crate/1.1/appendix/relative-uris. html 11. Note that an RO-Crate is not required to be published on the Web, see Section 2.2.2.…”

Making Common Fund data more findable: Catalyzing a Data Ecosystem

“…To make Common Fund data more findable, the CFDE has created a flexible system of data federation that enables users to discover datasets from across the CF at a centralized portal without requiring Common Fund programs to move, reformat, or rehost their data, similar to the federation strategy of the Research Data Alliance (Plante et al, 2021) and The Australian Research Data Commons (Barker, Wilkinson and Treloar, 2019). The CFDE uses a sociotechnical federation system that combines proven, explicitly community driven approaches (Cruz et al, 2019;DeBarry et al, 2020;Plante et al, 2021) with a model driven catalog that incorporates metadata submitted by individual CF Program Data Coordination Centers (DCCs) into a uniform metadata model that can then be indexed and searched from a centralized portal.…”

“…Reusing Common Fund data for new cross-cutting analyses requires expertise in working with large files, accessing data in the cloud, harmonization, and data transformation --all before any scientific analysis can begin. Each stage presents an individually large challenge for a typical biomedical researcher or clinician which motivates labs to hire dedicated bioinformaticians (at considerable cost to NIH); confronting all of these challenges together is prohibitive for integrative analysis.To make Common Fund data more findable, the CFDE has created a flexible system of data federation that enables users to discover datasets from across the CF at a centralized portal without requiring Common Fund programs to move, reformat, or rehost their data, similar to the federation strategy of the Research Data Alliance (Plante et al, 2021) and The Australian Research Data Commons (Barker, Wilkinson and Treloar, 2019). The CFDE uses a sociotechnical federation system that combines proven, explicitly community driven approaches (Cruz et al, 2019;DeBarry et al, 2020;Plante et al, 2021) with a model driven catalog that incorporates metadata submitted by individual CF Program Data Coordination Centers (DCCs) into a uniform metadata model that can then be indexed and searched from a centralized portal.…”