Presentation given at LiLa conference, 11 April 2011 (http://www.lila-project.org/conference2011/programme.html)

1. LiLa Conference 2011: Sharing Online Laboratories for Education – 11 April 2011 Presenter or main title… “Virtual” VREs - bringing research into the curriculum Session Title or subtitle… Christopher BrownDigital Infrastructure Team

2. JISC Mission To provide world-class leadership in the innovative use of ICT, to support education and research 11/04/2011| Slide 2

3. Primary JISC Activities Committees & Consultation e-Administration e-Learning e-Research e-Content Services Innovation Programmes e-Infrastructure Access Management Network Outreach & Embedding 11/04/2011 | Slide 3

4. JISC e-Research Programmes Research Communities Engagement Virtual Research Environments Research Data Management Research Infrastructures and Services 11/04/2011 | Slide 4

5. VRE definition A VRE comprises a set of online tools and other network resources and technologies interoperating with each other to facilitate or enhance the processes of research practitioners within and across institutional boundaries. A key characteristic of a VRE is that it facilitates collaboration amongst researchers and research teams providing them with more effective means of collaboratively collecting, manipulating and managing data, as well as collaborative knowledge creation. 11/04/2011 | Slide 5

6. JISC VRE Programmes 11/04/2011 | Slide 6

7. VRE Phase 1 Experimental Application of VLE approaches to research Application of Service Oriented Architectures to research 11/04/2011 | Slide 7

9. BVREH

10. Sakai education research

11. CHESHIRE 3

14. CORE

15. Sakai portal demonstrator

16. EVIE

17. ELVI

18. IUGO

19. GROWL

20. MEMETIC11/04/2011 | Slide 8

21. VRE Phase 1 - Technologies Portal ELVI EVIE Portal Demo IBVRE CORE MEMETIC ISME IUGO OGHAM Edu Research Cheshire CSAGE BVREH Political Discourse Growl Domain Specific Sakai Generic 11/04/2011 | Slide 9

23. Demonstrators11/04/2011 | Slide 10

24. VRE Phase 2 – Four Demonstrators 11/04/2011 | Slide 11

25. VRE for Study of Documents and Manuscripts 11/04/2011 | Slide 12

26. 11/04/2011 | Slide 13

27. VRE for Study of Documents and Manuscripts 11/04/2011 | Slide 14

28. 11/04/2011 | Slide 15

29. CREW Collaborative Research Events on the Web (CREW) 11/04/2011 | Slide 16

30. Overview Slides April 2009 http://www.crew-vre.net/ 11/04/2011 | Slide 17

31. CREW 11/04/2011 | Slide 18

33. A repository of research methods

34. A community social network

35. A Virtual Research Environment

36. Open source (BSD) Ruby on Rails application with HTML, REST and SPARQL interfaces

37. Project started March 2007

38. Closed beta since July 2007

39. Open beta November 2007myExperiment has over 3000 members, 200 groups, 1000 workflows, 300 files and 100 packs* Go to www.myexperiment.org to access publicly available content or create an account *April 2011 11/04/2011 | Slide 19

40. The social process of Science Virtual Learning Environment Reprints Peer-Reviewed Journal & Conference Papers Technical Reports LocalWeb Preprints & Metadata Repositories Certified Experimental Results & Analyses 2.0 Undergraduate Students Digital Libraries scientists Graduate Students experimentation Data, Metadata Provenance WorkflowsOntologies 16/11/2010 | Slide 20

41. 16/11/2010 | Slide 21

43. Groups

44. Friends

45. Sharing

46. Tags

47. Workflows

48. Developer interface

49. Credits and Attributions

50. Fine control over privacy

51. Packs

52. Federation

53. EnactmentDistinctives 11/04/2011 | Slide 22

54. Virtual Environments for Research in Archaeology - VERA 11/04/2011 | Slide 23

55. VERA – Online presence 11/04/2011 | Slide 24

56. VERA – Technology trials 11/04/2011 | Slide 25

57. VRE Phase 3 Embedding and extending take-up “Building communities for sharing practice” Open ended/rolling programme 11/04/2011 | Slide 26

58. VRE Phase 3 The intention of this programme is not to produce a complete VRE, but rather to define and help to develop the frameworks and associated standards and to encourage the development and population of VREs with applications, services and resources appropriate to their needs. 11/04/2011| Slide 27

59. VRE Phase 3 - Overview 11/04/2011 | Slide 28

61. 11/04/2011| | Slide 30

62. VRE Phase 3 – VRE-CI 11/04/2011| Slide 31 VRE Toolkit for SP2010 Cancer Imaging VRE (VRE-CI) to provide a framework to allow researchers and clinicians involved in Cancer Imaging to share information, images and algorithms. Builds on the Research Information Centre (RIC) developed for bioscience researchers by the British Library and Microsoft Corporation.

63. VRE Phase 3 – VRE-CI 11/04/2011| Slide 32 Image Library Image Metadata Curation Image Viewer Annotation Tools

64. VRERI – Rapid Innovation http://code.google.com/p/vreri/ 11/04/2011| Slide 33

65. VRERI - Megstream Megstream: Streamlining the processing of MEG dataThe Megstream prototype aims to simplify brain research and make it more accessible. MEG scanners measure magnetic activity in the brain over time. Specialist software from the vendor produces images of this activity within the brain for analysis and diagnosis. The Megstream software makes it easier to produce these images by: overlaying the previously complex and ‘fuzzy’ process with ordered workflows providing remote access to these analysis workflows via a web browser And it makes it easier to track and reproduce the underlying research by: recording information about each scan in a database using a plugin to the WordPress blogging platform to link the information in the database and the process of creating and analysing MEG images 11/04/2011| Slide 34 http://www1.aston.ac.uk/lhs/research/centres-facilities/brain-centre/facilities-clinical-services/meg-studies/streamlining-meg/

66. VRERI - AMI AMI - a prototype of a natural user interface system that allows bench scientists to interact with their experimental information at the fumehood, using innovative modes of communication appropriate to the lab setting, focusing on voice recognition, touch-screens and laser keyboards. 11/04/2011| Slide 35 Log in using ID badge (Touch-A-Tag RFID reader) The Ami experiment selection screen All chemicals and apparatus tagged with an RFID tag http://amiproject.wordpress.com The Ami event log screen

67. VRERI - AMI 11/04/2011 | Slide 36 All output files created are stored in one directory for each experiment. This makes it easy to keep track of all data created, and to transfer it to the electronic lab notebook Each sensor has its own log file The Ami Experiment Monitoring Tool, here being used to monitor tea temperature… The infrared sensor being tested on an Arduino circuit board

68. VRE – for teaching Many VRE projects could be built on to take them into the classroom Use same tools as researchers – “virtual” VRE Taking into a teaching environment not often considered In future include from the outset not as an add on Often requires removing personal information from real data 11/04/2011| Slide 37

69. Further Details Programme Websites http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/vre http://code.google.com/p/vreri/ Christopher Brown, Programme Manager (e-Research) E-Mail: c.brown@jisc.ac.uk Tel: +44 7891 501177 Matthew Dovey, Programme Director (e-Research) E-Mail: m.dovey@jisc.ac.uk Tel: +44 7876 445403 Programme hash tags: #jiscvre #vre 11/04/2011 | Slide 38

70. Questions 11/04/2011 | Slide 39