ERO – Page 4 – UWC eResearch Office

12 July 202112 July 2021

REDCap Webinar Recording

On 6 July, the eResearch Office held a webinar on REDCap, a powerful tool for electronic data capture and management. The session was facilitated by Director of the eResearch Office Prof Vaccari, and included presentations from members of the eResearch Office, as well as two informative and inspiring presentations from UWC researchers who make regular use of REDCap for their research – Faheema Kimmie-Dhansay and Tamryn Frank.

REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) is a browser-based, metadata-driven Electronic Data Capture (EDC) software and workflow methodology for designing clinical and translational research databases. It is widely used in the academic research community: the REDCap Consortium is a collaborative, international network of more than 2400 institutional partners in over 115 countries, with more than 590,000 total end-users employing the software for more than 450,000 ongoing research studies. REDCap users can benefit from a broad range of data collection functionality, and take control of their data collection work. It is a powerful tool for secure methods of flexible and robust data collection, and although it was originally developed for the Health Sciences, it can be used in any discipline.

Watch a recording of our REDCap webinar.

About our Guest Presenters

Faheema, a Biostatistician with qualifications in Dentistry and Clinical Epidemiology, is currently working at UWC’s dental faculty and is pursuing her PhD in the risk factors associated with the incidence of caries in children under 6. She has a special interest in the detection of caries in adults and children, alike, and is interested in statistical models analysing time-varying covariates.

Tamryn is a researcher at the UWC’s School of Public Health (SoPH). She works in the food environment policy space, in the field of obesity- and NCD prevention. This informs her current PhD research, which is in the area of obesity prevention policies in low income settings. She is currently serving on the research working group advising the South African National Department of Health on Front-of-Package labelling. Prior to joining the SoPH, Tamryn worked as a primary health care dietitian for eight years for the Department of Health. Her masters research focused on human rights and food security.

28 June 2021

Upcoming REDCap Webinar: Take Control Of Electronic Data Capture And Workflow

The eResearch Office invites researchers and students to participate in a webinar on REDCap on Tuesday 6 July at 11am.

REDCap users can benefit from a broad range of data collection functionality, and take control of their data collection work. It is a powerful tool for secure methods of flexible and robust data collection, and although it was originally developed for the Health Sciences, it can be used in any discipline.

The webinar will include an introduction to the REDCap platform and its main features, a demonstration on how REDCap data can be used for analysis and visualisation, as well as brief presentations of use cases by colleagues at UWC. We will conclude with questions directed at the panel.

We will also be addressing any UWC-specific related REDCap queries, and if there are any pressing questions that you would like to raise, please feel free to email us prior to the webinar at eresearch-support@uwc.ac.za

REDCAP Webinar Details

Date: Tuesday 6 July
Time: 11:00 am
Register in advance: https://uwc.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUrdO6gqD4oGtX-_HRfWxFJIhbVWq-tAQSU

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

We look forward to seeing you there.

7 June 202123 June 2021

NITheCS Colloquium: Prof Mattia Vaccari, The Ilifu Cloud Computing Facility & X-Informatics Data Intensive Research

Monday, 7 June, 4pm.

NITheCS (National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences) is hosting a colloquium featuring UWC’s Director of the eResearch Office, Prof Mattia Vaccari.

Abstract

Over the past decade, the global science enterprise has been transformed by the data generating capabilities of our instruments. Distributed science collaborations creating datasets too large to manage for individual researchers are becoming the norm, and in response, X-Informatics, or the application of data science techniques to different science fields, has evolved into a new and exciting field of applied computer science. In this new big data era, institutions and national communities that have the capacity to design and implement the solutions to effectively extract knowledge from data will play a lead role in science. Those that do not, will not.

The Ilifu project was set up to address this challenge in Astroinformatics and Bioinformatics. Ilifu is building cross-disciplinary teams to undertake research and development in technologies and big data science to build capacity for South African researchers to be globally competitive in the era of big data.

In this presentation, Prof Vaccari will talk about Ilifu, its partnership model, goals and research programs, with a particular focus on multi-wavelength galaxy evolution studies, and outline a vision for a federated South African Data Intensive Research Cloud that empowers researchers to work with and collaborate on big data science projects.

3 June 202123 June 2021

Five Years of FAIR

Five years since the formal publication of the FAIR data principles, a newly published white paper, Springer Nature’s The Future of FAIR, looks at the real-world impact of FAIR. An international cohort of research data professionals share their opinions and offer commentary on the impact of the FAIR data principles to date, as well as what the next steps in research data management are.

Varsha Khodiyar on the Springboard blog writes that the “burgeoning open science (or open research) movement aims to make public and charity funded research as transparent and accessible as possible, and available for use to all to use, extend and build on. Research data is central to this vision, and to many policies and initiatives launched in recent years encouraging the adoption of open science practices. The impact of the FAIR data concept on open science advocates, position statements, policies and funding opportunities is unmistakable”.

28 April 20217 May 2021

Webinar: RDM Tools available at UWC and Unpacking UWC’s RDM Policy

On Wednesday 21 April, a webinar was hosted by the eResearch Office and UWC Library, titled RDM Tools available at UWC and Unpacking UWC’s RDM Policy.

Mark Snyders, Manager of Scholarly Communication at the Library, spoke in detail about UWCs new RDM Policy, and how it affects researchers at UWC. Sarah Schäfer, Research Data Specialist at the eResearch Office presented on the different RDM tools and resources that are available to the UWC research community.

The session was hosted by eResearch Office Director, Prof Mattia Vaccari and Deputy Director of UWC Library Services Alfred Nqotole. The presentations were followed by questions and a discussion.

Please send any further questions to rdm-support@uwc.ac.za

Watch a recording of the webinar.

24 March 202124 March 2021

SKIES

SKIES (SKilled, Innovative and Entrepreneurial Scientists) is an EU-funded project launched at the beginning of March. It aims to provide PhD and young doctoral researchers in the field of astronomy with new transferable skills for academia and industry, integrating open science, social innovation and entrepreneurship topics.

Leiden University in the Netherlands is leading the project, and local PI Dr Lucia Marchetti (from UCT’s Astronomy department) is the lead for the South African involvement of the initiative. eResearch Director and Astroinformatics Research Professor Mattia Vaccari is involved in the project too, along with SARAO. The project will run for 18 months.

“While an advanced degree in STEM subjects has long been an excellent basis for a career e.g. in the tech industry, most graduates still have to pick up additional skills along the way. The SKIES project aims to bridge this gap by enabling Astronomy PhD students to build upon their strengths to develop into well-rounded scientists and professionals. This is particularly important for SA in the increasingly global talent search of the 4IR era”, says Prof Vaccari.

SKIES will be implemented in astronomy research organisations around the world, including South Africa, Germany, The Netherlands, Poland and Portugal, reaching 500 astronomy graduate students and young researchers. A Train-the-Trainer programme will build the capacity of the teaching staff in each partner country so that they have the knowledge and tools to continue the programme beyond the lifetime of the project.

“I am thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to our PhD candidates. Their astronomy training already provides them many theoretical skills they can apply into a job outside academia, like programming and problem-solving. With this training, we will now show them how they can best exploit and translate their knowledge into a job beyond astronomy. In this way we will ensure that all our astronomy students are fully equipped for whichever path they decide to take after their PhD”, says local PI Dr Lucia Marchetti.

Madagascar Astronomy Python Workshop 2017. Credit: IAU Office of Astronomy for Development archive

“The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) supports this exciting collaboration, which gives doctoral students the necessary skills for a smoother transition from academia to industry. It is expected that the SKIES project will lead to increased employability of doctoral students in industry or through entrepreneurship, who will be effectively working on high-impact areas to benefit broader society on the African continent. We look forward to implementing this training and development opportunity with our South African and European partners.”, says Dr Bonita de Swardt, SARAO Programme Manager: Strategic Partnerships for Human Capital Development.

The project summary can be viewed here.

15 March 202123 March 2021

Women in Data Science (WiDS) Event

For international women’s day last week, H3ABioNet hosted a WiDS Africa regional event to engage the community of diverse women in Data Science.

WiDS Africa is an independent event that was organised by H3ABioNet (Pan African Bioinformatics Network for the Human Heredity and Health in Africa) in collaboration with MARI & dLabTz (Tanzanian Data Lab) as part of WiDS Worldwide conference organized by Stanford University. It features outstanding women doing outstanding work in the field of data science.

The recording includes the WiDS Stanford Livestream as well as featured Africa-specific lightning talks, panel discussions, Keynote speech, and ends with a networking event.

8 March 20218 March 2021

UWC’s Online Data Carpentry Workshop in April

An online Data Carpentry workshop will take place from 12-16 April, and is aimed at students and researchers who want to start learning how to work with their data. The workshop will be hosted by UWC and sponsored by SADiLaR.

Registration opens today!

Data Carpentry develops and teaches workshops on the fundamental data skills needed to conduct research. Its target audience is researchers who have little to no prior computational experience, and its lessons are domain specific, building on learners’ existing knowledge to enable them to quickly apply skills learned to their own research. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

For more information on what the Carpentries teach and why, please see the paper Good Enough Practices for Scientific Computing.

Lessons will include data organising and cleaning with OpenRefine, and data analysis and visualisation with R. No previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop is necessary.

Participation is free, and there is a registration link on the site.

Please contact eresearch-support@uwc.ac.za if there are any questions about the workshop, or contact Sarah Schäfer directly at sschafer@uwc.ac.za

8 March 20218 March 2021

Join the African Scientists Directory

The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) has invited African scientists/scientists working on African research to consider joining the African Scientists Directory. The directory aims at connecting African scientists across the globe, and assists in identifying experts in selected fields – whether it is to invite as part of a meeting, panel, or conference, to conduct article peer-reviews, to invite as an external examiner, to co-author an article or collaborate as part of a project, or for any other professional reasons.

This can be done in 3 simple steps: Register & verify email – Login – Submit listing

Once submitted, the profile will be reviewed and once all information has been verified, it will be published on the database. Selected information is open access, but also view the end-user policy and data privacy/security policy for this database.

Additionally, the African Open Science Platform pilot project was concluded in October 2019, and ASSAf recently received consent from the funder (NRF) to make the Landscape Report available through the ASSAf Research Repository. It can be accessed here.

1 March 2021

Meet Oko

Oko Lwana is the Administrative Officer at the eResearch Office. She works closely with the eResearch Director, Prof Mattia Vaccari, and is responsible for managing inventory, maintaining eResearch records, handling budget and office reporting, invoicing and providing customer service. Oko also assists with coordinating various activities, meetings, conferences and workshops.

Oko grew up in the Eastern Cape, and obtained her Project Management Degree at Cape Peninsula University (CPUT).

She is currently busy with her MTech in Project Management and finds eResearch interesting because, as the importance of research capabilities grows, she learns something new every day.

She loves reading and socialising in her free time and going out to meet friends.