Collaboration creates a new national registry of training events, materials and trainers
The Australian BioCommons training program has long benefitted from a close connection with ELIXIR Europe through its Training Platform. Our Bioinformatics Training Advisory Group draws members from Europe, the US and across Australia and resulting collaborations offer support and encouragement across continents. The impact of being able to draw on the experience of international peers is demonstrated by the imminent launch of a new training events and materials portal for Australasia based on ELIXIR’s TeSS.
Australian bioinformatics training events have been submitted to the international TeSS portal since 2017. Recognising the utility of a single registry that compiled bioinformatics events and materials and was searchable by location and topic, we advocated (then as EMBL-ABR) for its use by bioinformatics training providers around Australia. The Australian Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Society joined us in using TeSS for several years and both organisations displayed the TeSS portal on their websites. When the opportunity arose to share our experience outside of the bioinformatics training community, we connected ELIXIR and the data science training community.
At a BioCommons Bioinformatics Training Advisory Group meeting, discussions between members recognised that the ongoing challenges faced by Australians seeking data science and eResearch training could be addressed by the application of a platform like ELIXIR’s TeSS. BioCommons was invited to give an introduction to how we used TeSS at the ARDC Skills Summit 2020, and we connected a newly formed working group with our Advisory Group member and Co-lead of the ELIXIR Europe Training Platform, Dr Celia van Gelder, who provided key information about TeSS’s capabilities. Two of the Australian members of our Advisory Group, Ann Backhaus (Pawsey) and Melissa Burke (Australian BioCommons), ultimately helped form the working group that collaborated on the design and delivery of a training registry based on the codebase of TeSS. Melissa has also continued to regularly contribute to the TeSS Club whose activities unite the international community to improve the training platform.
I really think this is an excellent example of successful collaboration in the global training landscape. We are one community.
Dr Celia van Gelder
Co-lead ELIXIR Europe Training Platform
Australian BioCommons Training Advisory Group member
The active working group with members from Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), Australian BioCommons, Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre, Intersect Australia, CSIRO, Deakin University, Sydney Informatics Hub - University of Sydney, National Computational Infrastructure, University of Newcastle, Federation University, Monash University, QCIF and the University of Queensland was convened by ARDC. They consulted with the TeSS Project Manager and Software Engineer, Chris Child, from ELIXIR-UK, and Pawsey and ARDC provided funding to bring in developer Nick May to deliver the tailor-made Digital Research Skills Australasia (DReSA). The extensions and customisations developed for DReSA are also feeding back into improving TeSS.
DReSA aims to make it easier for learners, trainers, and training providers to find digital research skills-focused educational events and resources in Australasia. This wonderful example of collaboration around a common challenge involving a large group of Australian organisations and ELIXIR is now ready for launch. We can’t wait to see BioCommons training listed there amongst the community’s events! The first iteration of DReSA is available online, and DReSA will be officially launched on 11 Oct 2021 at the eResearch Australasia 2021 conference session, A national approach to improve discoverability and accessibility of digital research skills training events, materials and trainers.
More information on the development and features of DReSA is available in ARDC’s launch announcement.
DReSA has received investments from the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre (Pawsey) and the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC). Pawsey and ARDC are funded by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).
