GRDC has invested significantly in research, but finding and accessing the data from these investments has been challenging, prompting the development of a data catalogue to improve accessibility and usability.
GRDC has spent $3.6 billion on research, development and extension (RD&E) for the benefit of Australian growers over the initial 30 years of its operation. Although data is now recognised as an asset, the data that was generated through the investments is hard to manage and could be easily lost.
Historically, libraries served as information hubs. With computers and the internet, digital cataloguing emerged, enabling online access to resources. Library catalogues list available books, while data catalogues list datasets and databases. Library catalogues guide users to shelves, while data catalogues direct to data repositories. Library catalogues indicate book availability, similar to data catalogues indicating data access. Both provide details such as author, publisher and creation data.
In an endeavour to collate and archive research data, GRDC made an initial investment in the Data Partnership Initiative, which brought together 12 Australian research institutions in collaboration to make GRDC-supported research data available under the internationally recognised FAIR principles, which state that data should be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable.
To build on this work, in 2022 GRDC invested with Aristotle Metadata via Elysium Digital Pty Ltd to build a data catalogue.
Aristotle Metadata chief executive Samuel Spencer uses cropping analogies when describing what the investment will achieve for GRDC, as he says farming is under-recognised as a data-driven industry.
“We are now in the information economy, where data is a key asset like a grower’s farm,” Mr Spencer says.
A data inventory is like a garden on your farm; you don’t just plant it and walk away, it requires continuous maintenance to increase its use.
Like library catalogues, data catalogues are not new. There are well-established catalogues in Australia and overseas. Examples include the Australian Research Data Common’s Research Data Australia, a research data catalogue that is national infrastructure and has an Australia-wide scope, while CSIRO’s Data Access Portal lists the datasets found in its data repository.
The data catalogue will allow its target audience of researchers, GRDC investment managers, companies and others to find the research data generated from previous and future investments. Researchers and GRDC investment managers will be able to know the extent of Australian grains RD&E data on a topic with a simple search.
The catalogue will unlock new opportunities to drive innovation by bringing together comprehensive and diverse datasets that can then have more-powerful analytics (for example, meta-analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence) applied to them to derive innovative insights that were previously unattainable.
The resources will be able to direct RD&E focus as the existing datasets will help researchers and investment managers understand the state of the art in grains-related RD&E and so enable them to direct their efforts towards valuable and new frontiers. Greater value will be extracted by re-using datasets in new projects; the value and return on investment from previous GRDC investment will be amplified.
Mr Spencer says by searching for datasets in the catalogue, users will be able to identify data relevant to their R&D activities, separating the wheat from the chaff.
Ultimately, the data catalogue will reduce the cost of research and accelerate research outcomes, avoid duplication and reduce errors.
Establishment of the GRDC data catalogue will also support compliance and governance responsibilities and help GRDC to meet its obligations under Australian Government data policy to publicly disclose its data assets where legal and commercial considerations allow.
More information: Sam Spencer, sam@aristotlemetadata.com