Capacity Building of University Researchers through the Digital

Futures - CRN

Professor Mike Keppell Director, Digital Futures - CRN

Executive Director Australian Digital Futures Institute

!University Research Performance Forum

22-23 July, 2014 - Sydney

Harnessing creativityWhat did we do before the internet

Translation to societyAsk the right questions

Know your adoption partnersNeed one front doorValue proposition

Relevance, impact on peoples lives

Tell compelling storiesEcosystem

Tell the stories of output and impact and get others to tell them for you

Research leaders need to become research advocatesBuild a strong leadership mentoring culture

Overview

n About USQ n Focussed research n Australian Digital Futures

Institute (ADFI) n Digital Futures - CRN n Management n Evaluations n Principles

3

About USQ

n Regional University !

n 75% of students study at a distance or online

!

n Toowoomba, Springfield, Ipswich, Fraser Coast

4

Digital Futures

Agriculture & Environment

Resilient Regions

Focussed Research

Australian Digital Futures Institute

Vision

ADFI’s vision is to transform the knowledge and skills of society through fostering digital literacies

Literacy is a contested conceptnThere is currently no universally accepted

definition of media literacy, information literacy, digital literacy, or even of “media” itself.

nThe digital divide is much more than a ‘technology access’ divide; without the skills to use the technologies an even greater divide emerges – the information literacy divide.

n http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/unesco_mil_indicators_background_document_2011_final_en.pdf

ADFI

RUN Maths & Science Digital

Classroom

NATA Five Tertiary Education

Associations

Digital Rural Futures

Conference

Making the Connection

ACCERT Paper to Pixels

From Access to Success

e-Health Mental Health

Digital Futures - CRN

Collaborative Research Networks

n In 2011, the CRN Networks scheme - $61.5 million for 12 projects - was announced.

n In 2013, three more institutions were awarded further funding

n USQ applied for and was awarded $5.1M for the Digital Futures - Collaborative Research Network (CRN)

14

Research Capacity Building

$5.1 million

Partnership with ANU & UniSA

90 Researchers

5 projects

Leadership Development Program

Digital Futures - CRN: Outcomesn An increase in the number of research active

staff n Increased mentorship activity through

the Research Leadership Development Program (RLDP)

n An increase in joint publications n An increase in joint applications for competitive

grants n An increase in the number of HDR student

completions n Collaborative research that is influential in policy

circles.

16

USQ-CRN Structuren A total of 90 staff are now involved in the CRN

(including partners) with USQ = 78 (19 of these full-time) and external = 12.

n Research Leadership Development Program (RLDP) with 16 cohort members and a working group

n 5 x research projects with 5 x CRN funded Postdoctoral Fellows and 9 x CRN funded PhD students

n CRN Management Committee & Partner Steering Group

n Other CRN funded professional and academic staff include the CRN Project Manager and Research Development Officer, a Project Officer, two Mid-Career Researchers and a Postdoctoral Fellow.

17

Project 1: Facilitating Mobility

n Developing an evaluation framework for mobile learning

!Goal: This project will form the foundation for a program of research in mobile learning that will support exploration of the changing nature of learning in a connected age.

Project 3: Virtual Extension

n Investigating the impact of a web-based, 'discussion-support', agricultural-climate information system on Australian farmers' operational decision making

n Goal: To develop and test the effectiveness of a technology rich learning environment to help farmers make complex decisions around climate risk management.

The Australian sugar industry is strongly influenced by both the impacts of daily weather and also seasonal climate variation. The success of the sugar industry depends heavily on capitalising on the opportunities and minimising the risks associated with climate variability along the supply chain. The excessive rainfall events and climate of the 2010/11 season have highlighted the critical need for improvement in more consistent and reliable delivery of accurate and useful climate forecasts with the aim of minimising the risks associated with sugar delivery and harvest management along the supply chain. Sugar production in Australia mainly occurs in discontinuous regions spanning 2100 km along the coast of eastern Australia within 50 km of the coastline. This region experiences extreme seasonal and annual variability in temperature and rainfall. Much of this inter-annual variability is due to the Pacific Ocean El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon.

The ability to more precisely forecast the extremes in our seasonal climate patterns for all key sugar growing regions and to fully develop knowledge on how this relates to industry planning is of vital practical and financial importance to the Australian sugar industry.

Targeted support tools and systems Development of appropriate decision support planning tools for 'harmonising' sugarcane harvesting management along the supply chain (managing the timing of production, harvesting, storage and logistics planning) through the provision of improved seasonal climate forecasts of relevance to all sectors in the sugar industry value chain to facilitate more dynamic and adaptable harvesting management plans.

Broader global cane production assessment Provision of global sugar production assessments to enable the Australian sugar industry to take advantage of global supply/demand conditions.

Development of longer term climate scenarios Development of longer term climate scenarios/projections (e.g. up to 2 years) that will incorporate advances developed at the UK Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Research (UKMO) and Australian Bureau of Meteorology, made relevant for both Australian and global sugar producing regions.

Communication and delivery tools Develop new methods in communication systems in order to deliver model outputs (harvested cane, seasonal forecasts and decision support planning tools) via targeting workshops, training and extension plans.

Targeted climate forecasting for key sugar producing regions

Provision of regularly appraised and improved 'targeted' forecasts for nominated key sugar producing regions at weekly, monthly, seasonal, and up to 6-9 month lead periods at mill-level area scales. • This will include the initiation of new processes

that will enable the provision of warnings and alerts of extreme events (relevant to breakdowns and other stoppages, to be defined by the industry) - updated with the provision of improved models as they become available globally and on a regular basis as determined by QSL.

Supporting Decision-Making in the Sugar Industry with Integrated Seasonal Climate Forecasting

භ Roger C Stone1 භ Shahbaz Mushtaq1 භ Torben Marcussen 1 භ Neil Cliffe1 භ Lynda Brunton 1

භ Yvette Everingham2 1. ACSC, University of Southern Queensland (USQ) , Toowoomba, Australia;

2. James Cook University (JCU), Townsville, Australia

Harvested cane forecasting Develop appropriate climate forecast methods that also incorporate utilization of a discounted base approach). • This will involve the interaction of crop models

with advanced climate forecast systems (at a number of scales), with further validation using Geographic Information Systems/Remote Sensing (GIS/RS systems).

• This will provide significantly more reliable, accurate and useful forecast systems in regards to (i) tonnes of harvested cane (ii) potential yield, and (iii) Commercial Cane Sugar (CCS). Furthermore, it also involves validation of mill-level sugarcane crop forecasts.

Research objectives

Introduction

Acknowledgements: • Queensland Sugar Limited (QSL) for providing funding associated with this research. • The Collaborative Research Network for Digital Futures.

Integrated climate – crop simulation model system required to provide detailed yield forecasts. Courtesy: Y. Everingham

Management

Director

7. Address issues early

1. Start with the end in

mind

3. Think win-win

4. Be consistent

5. Never Compromise

quality

6. Be Transparent

2. Play-to-your-

strengths

8. Sustainability

Scaffold

Evaluation

EvaluationnDepartment of

Education - 15 CRNs !

nSustainability - USQ initiated !

nLeadership development program !

n Impact evaluation - PhD Student

35

Building Capacity

Work in Ways that Fit Your Context

Provide Space for Researchers

Distributive Leadership

Mentoring Culture

Provide Feedback as Feed-Forward

Ecosystem

University

ADFI DF-CRN

Community

5 Projects Leadership Program

Research KPIs

Any Questions?