Introduction to….

eResearch
• Linking people to resources.

+ +
High IT
people performing professionals
computers

= to make research easy.

Traditionally,
 Make resource materials available to
researchers by storing, managing
and preserving scholarly materials.
 Create vertical files, classify
materials for easy access.

 Are trained to reduce research

materials, to facilitate accessibility
by having to form and collaborate to
share published works.
 =

Open Personal Access Catalog

(OPAC) system
 Open Personal Access
Catalog (OPAC) system
• Used by other institutions to provide
for materials in digital form.
• Because of the OPAC system, the fast
changing digital landscape has now
outrun the responses of colleges and
universities to meet specific research
needs for computing infrastructure in
their libraries.
• Before: acquiring scholarly
published materials
• Now: Managing scholarship in
collaboration with researchers
who develop and use this data.
• Reason: they face the risk to fade
from existence if they do not
respond to the changing
environment.
Is the term applied to the use of
advanced information and
communication technologies (ICT’s)
to the practice of research.
The activities include
Collaboration
High performance computing
Visualization
Research data management and tools
(eResearch,n.d.)
• Allows researchers to conduct
research activities beyond and across
many institutions
• Adopt various tools and
methodologies through shared data
collections, advanced data curation,
annotation tools and high
computing and visualization
(What is eResearch,n.d.)
• (in another term format) is defined as a
broader term that includes nonscientific
research but also refers to large scale,
distributed, national or global
collaboration in research.

(ARC, 2005)
 New terms we will likely to encounter
with eResearch:
• Cyberinfrastructure – refers to the computing and
network infrastructure that enables research
environments such as “collaboratory, co-laboratory,
grid community network, virtual science
community, e-science community.”
• Grid – a specified element of cyberinfrastructure
that is crucial in the development of e-research
which enables sharing of data in the form of
collection of data repositories, specialozed scientific
equipment, computing power and knowledge
services.
New terms we will likely to encounter
with eResearch:

• Middleware- is essentially the software that

provides standard community tools and services
for knowledge management and knowledge
sharing.
• According to Appelbe and Bannon (2007), is a
concept or word which has come to into vogue
in academic research circles since 2000.
• Fundamentally, it is a collaborative and
interactive research made possible by the
Internet and data and computation grids.
eResearch projects don’t use technology, rather
they are reliant on IT technology and
organizational support to achieve the outcomes
of research.
Characteris
eResearch Traditional Research
-tics
Diversely skilled, Individual
Participants distributed research researcher or small
teams local research team.
Generated, stored
and accessible form Locally generated,
Needed data
distributed stored and accessible
locations.
Characteris
eResearch Traditional Research
-tics
Large-scale or on- Batch compute jobs
Computation
demand or jobs run on
and
instrumen- computation or researcher’s own
tation access to shared computers or
instruments. research instruments
Reliant on the
Not reliant on the
Networking internet and
internet
middleware
Characteris
eResearch Traditional Research
-tics
Through print
Dissemina- Through websites
publications and
tion of and specialized
Research conference
wed portals
presentations
Tools that can improve the research
outcomes through:
Improved collaboration
Utilization of local, national IT
infrastructure
Accessing data repositories and
collections
Utilizing advanced computing facilities
Managing and reusing research data