Research productivity and impact requires academic researchers and higher degree research students being able to confidently and competently apply emerging digital research technologies to their research.
Research productivity and impact requires academic researchers and higher degree research students being able to confidently and competently apply emerging digital research technologies to their research. The research support provided by Intersect’s Digital Research Analysts (DRAs) is core to membership, helping researchers to identify suitable technologies that will support their research program and to contextualise skills learned in training to meet their specific research needs.
Each member university has one or more Digital Research Analysts who bring to the university a range of locally relevant skills and experience. The Digital Research Analysts across all member universities then work together, pooling over 50 years of combined skill and experience, in diverse disciplines, to support researchers across the entire membership of Intersect.
DRA Activities
Digital Research Analysts are the primary contact for researcher and organisational support. Depending on the strategic research priorities of the university, the Digital Research Analyst may undertake many different activities in providing research support, including, but not limited to:
Training: coordination, administration, and delivery of Intersect training, while also being involved in course ideation, development, and maintenance to ensure training courses meet evolving member needs;
Direct research support: research and project specific advice delivered one-on-one and via research support forums or communities of practice established for the university;
Research strategy, policy, and procedures: support both the research community and the university with Research Data Management planning, as well as making contributions to research strategy, policy, and strategic initiatives, drawing on the best practices among member universities and the wider sector;
Researcher engagement: research community needs analysis and promulgation of university policies and technology practices: helping the university to know what the researchers need and the researchers know where and how to access what the university already provides;
Programming, scripting, and analytics: basic scripting and programming in R, Python, Matlab, etc., including data visualisation and analytics, along with API identification, access, and usage;
Research application support: providing advice, assistance, and guidance with common research applications such as REDCap, Qualtrics, NVivo, Git, and more, as well as assisting the university with user administration and management;
Access to research technology: basic assistance in accessing high-performance computing, including PBS scripting, and research cloud computing and storage technologies; as well as assisting with access to technologies for data capture and data management and the identification of on-campus, national infrastructure, and Intersect technology solutions.
Digital Research Analysts play a core role in building the capability and productivity of the university member research community through training and contextualised research support, helping researchers to establish and use new skills and technologies in their own research.
But sometimes, researchers need more… They need specialist research data scientists, with advanced skills in artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics, etc. who can collaborate with them on specific research projects. For this reason, Intersect created 3AI: our advanced data science and analytics team.
